Black Mountain Rowing Club sculler Luke Letcher has been selected to represent Australia in the Trans Tasman competition, and is already racing the best from New Zealand at Sydney International Rowing Centre. Over the weekend Luke and ANU sculler Emily Caudle trialled against the best of Australia’s Under 21 rowers and scullers for a place on the Australian team. In these trials, Emily’s best result was winning the B Final for the women scullers. Luke showed good form in the single, and was selected in the Australian team. The New Zealand team have been training in Sydney in preparation for this contest and the first leg of the Trans Tasman competition is being held yesterday and today (9th and 10th July).
Yesterday Luke showed good form in the Men’s Trans Tasman singles race to win ahead of the other Australian sculler Wilson Mure, and ahead of both New Zealand representatives. This is a great result for Luke, as New Zealand has a great tradition of producing world class scullers.
The second leg of the Trans-Tasman competition will take place at Lake Karapiro in New Zealand between the 4th and the 8th of September 2013. There will also be an eights race over 5km against the current of the fast flowing Waikato River
The key purpose of this event is to provide an opportunity for the best Under 21 athletes to gain high level competition practice in between the World Championship age categories of Under 19 and Under 23.
The Under 21 Australian Team is a new activity on the Australian international calendar. It is a Trans-Tasman competition against New Zealand based on the Youth Cup (2002–2012) principle in 2013. The Under 21 Australian Team will comprise of a Men’s and a Women’s Eight plus a gender reserve. The eights will comprise 6 open weight athletes, 2 lightweight athletes and a coxswain. The same multi event format comprising sweep rowing and sculling will take place and some athletes can be expected to compete in both sculling and sweep categories.