Silver Success for Skipworth

Western Australian Institute of Sport rowing scholarship holder Todd Skipworth and his men’s lightweight four boat captured a silver medal in the final at the World Championships in New Zealand on the weekend.

In a sensational result for Australia, the lightweight men’s four claimed silver in a dramatic finale.

Todd Skipworth along with the Tasmanian trio of Blair Tunevitsch, Sam Beltz and Anthony Edwards held amongst the leading group down the 2000m course to set up a five boat race to the line.

The top three crews finished within 0.08 seconds of each other, with Great Britain taking the gold medal ahead of Australia, while China was 0.01 seconds further back in third.

Beltz said there was confusion with the result as the bunch crossed the line.

“It was very tight,” Beltz said. “I thought we had won, but it wasn’t until we saw the board that we saw we were second. But we are very happy with that.”

It was Australia’s first major international medal in the category since Edwards was part of the silver medal winning crew at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

Adding further gloss to a successful campaign was the silver medal to the men’s lightweight eight which included WAIS athletes Perry Ward and Ross Brown along with Tom Bertrand (VIC), Darryn Purcell (QLD), Nick Baker (TAS), Alister Foot (TAS), Blair Tunevitsch (TAS) and Angus Tyers (VIC) with David Webster (VIC) coxswain.

Olympian and WAIS scholarship holder Ben Cureton was a late withdrawal from the crew due to a back complaint, which allowed Tunevitsch the chance to add another medal to the silver he won in the lightweight men’s four.

Australia battled with Germany down the 2000m course with the experienced German crew holding on for the win ahead of Australia, who recorded a time of 5:50.27.

– Rowing Australia