James Rook (rowing)
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| Born | 18 November 1997 | ||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Rowing | ||||||||||||||||
| Club | Melbourne Uni Boat Club | ||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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James Rook (born 18 November 1997 in Victoria) is an Australian national representative rowing coxswain. He was a medallist at the 2017 and 2018 World Rowing Championships and a winner of the Remenham Challenge Cup at the 2018 Henley Royal Regatta. He is notable for becoming in 2018 the first Australian male coxswain to steer a representative Australian female crew under the FISA gender-neutral coxswain selection policy change of 2017.
Club and state rowing
Rook was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne where he took up rowing. His senior coxing was from the Melbourne University Boat Club.
He was first selected to represent Victoria in the men's youth eight who contested the Noel F Wilkinson Trophy in the Interstate Regatta within the 2016 Australian Rowing Championships.[1] In 2017 & 2018 he coxed the Victorian senior men's eight contesting the King's Cup at the Australian Interstate Regatta.[2]
International representative rowing
Rook was first selected to represent Australia in the senior men's squad of 2017 who raced at the World Rowing Cups II and III in Europe before contesting the 2017 World Rowing Championships in Sarasota USA. At those World Championships Rook coxed the Australian coxed pair of Angus Widdicombe and Darcy Wruck to a silver medal.[3] He also steered the Australian men's senior eight in Sarasota to an overall eighth placing.[3]
In 2017 FISA announced a number of new rule changes, including voting for coxswains to become gender neutral. In 2018 Australian selection processes embraced this new policy resulting in Rook being selected to steer the Australian women's senior eight for the World Rowing Cup II of 2018 and Kendall Brodie of Sydney Rowing Club being selected to cox the Australian men's senior eight.[4] The women's eight with Rook in the stern started their 2018 international campaign with a bronze medal win at the World Rowing Cup II in Linz, Austria.[3] In their second competitive outing of the 2018 international season in a national selection eight and racing as the Georgina Hope Rinehart National Training Centre, after Rowing Australia patron, Gina Rinehart, Rook steered the 2018 Australian women's eight to a Remenham Challenge Cup victory at the Henley Royal Regatta.[5] At the 2018 World Rowing Championships in Plovdiv the Australian women's eight with Rook at cox, won their heat and placed third in the final winning the bronze medal.[3]
References
- James Rook at FISA WorldRowing.com