David Watts (rower)

David Watts
Personal information
Nationality Australian
Born 1992
Height 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in)
Weight 95 kg (209 lb)
Sport
Country Australia
Sport Rowing
Club Sydney Rowing Club
Achievements and titles
Olympic finals Rio, Men's double scull, placed 7th
Medal record
Representing  Australia
World Championships
2015 AiguebeletteM4x
2018 PlovdivM4x
World U23 Championships
U23 2012 TrakaiM8+
Youth Olympic Games
2010 SingaporeM2-
Junior World Championships
2010 RaciceM4+

David Watts (born 1992) is an Australian rower. He is a 2016 Olympian and won silver medals at the 2015 and 2018 World Rowing Championships.

School, club and state rowing

Watts was born in England before moving to Perth, Australia as a child. He was a successful swimmer before moving to the sport of rowing, aged 13, after being identified as a talented athlete by the West Australian Institute of Sport's ( WAIS) Talent Identification Program .[1] He won numerous medals at state level and first represented Australia in the junior men's four, aged 16, finishing 4th in the A final, in Linz, Austria. Aged 17 he won the Australian National Schoolboy's single scull (representing Trinity College, Perth), the under 19 single scull, two further gold medals and one silver in various crew boats. Earlier that year, aged 16, he also claimed the WA PSA indoor ergo record.

International rowing career

Watts made a number of underage appearances for Australia – at the 2008 & 2010 Junior World Rowing Championships; the 2010 Youth Olympics and the 2012 & 2014 World Rowing U23 Championships, winning three bronze medals.[2]

At the 2015 World Rowing Championships on Lac d'Aiguebelette in Aiguebelette, France, he won a silver medal in the men's quadruple scull (M4x) event, rowing with David Crawshay, Karsten Forsterling and Cameron Girdlestone.[2] Watts was next selected to row Australia's double scull at the 2016 Summer Olympics with Chris Morgan, winning the B final in a very, competitive boat class.[3]

In 2017 Watts rowed Australia's double scull with Luke Letcher at two World Rowing Cups in Europe and then at the 2017 World Rowing Championships where they finished in overall seventeenth place.[2] He had greater success in 2018 in the Australian quad scull in the World Championships, Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The crew placed third in their heat and then first in the repercharge, eliminating the Lithuanian world champions. In the final, Watts in stroke seat and the Australian quad of Caleb Antill, Nic Purnell and Cambell Watts rowed through most of the field from the 1000m mark and finished in second place just behind Italy for a silver world championship medal.[2]

In 2018 he was Western Australia's selected representative in the single sculls event – contesting the President's Cup – at the Interstate Regatta, winning silver.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "Rowing | PSA". www.psa.wa.edu.au. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Watts at World Rowing
  3. ↑ Australian Olympic profile 2016
  4. ↑ West Australian 2018 squad
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