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All eyes will be on Australia’s Para-rowing team at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, as eight athletes competing in three boats chase their own slice of history.
Three-time Paralympic silver medallist in the PR1 single scull, Erik Horrie, will line up at his fourth Paralympic Games, as he strives to win Australia’s first rowing Paralympic gold medal. The veteran of the rowing team will lead the way and will no doubt face tough competition in what will be one of the most competitive races at the regatta.
The PR3 mixed double sculls event will make its debut at the 2024 Paralympic Games and Australia will be looking to claim a medal in the first staging of the event. The 2023 World Rowing Para Crew of the Year, Nikki Ayers and Jed Altschwager, started competing together internationally in 2023 and formed a successful synergy, twice breaking World Best Time and winning at the World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
Ayers and Altschwager have known each other since 2017 when they met during an Australian rowing camp, but it was not until the double sculls was announced for Paris 2024 that they truly had the reason to row together.
Tokyo Paralympians Alexandra Viney and Tom Birtwhistle will team up with debutants Susannah Lutze, Tobiah Goffsassen and Hannah Cowap in the PR3 mixed coxed four.
Lutze and Goffsassen are both riding the highs of their whirlwind journey to the Paralympic Games.
“Exceeded all expectations, we have two people in our crew who went to Tokyo and told us all about it, but the excitement coming into the Village, it was pretty surreal,” said 18-year-old Goffsassen.
“I started rowing at school in grade seven and as I was in year 12 my coach knew the Head Coach [Australian Paralympic Team] Chad King and he got me down to have a few chats and that’s what got me on the pathway.
“Last year I wasn’t expecting to make the team for Paris, I just thought I’d see how I go, but we are here,” he said.
For 20-year-old Lutze, passion to be in Paris came from her first coach as well as watching the Tokyo Paralympics during lockdown.
“My first coach Maya Worth, she inspired me to love rowing. She didn’t just teach me to row but to love the sport and learn to work hard for what you want,” Lutze said.
“I watched the Tokyo four go down the track in lockdown with my friend and she said, ‘you know you have a clubfoot [talipes equinovarus], you might be able to classify’. It was kind of said as a joke but then we searched it, and it was on the list of disabilities that qualified so I emailed the Para-coach at the time and we got chatting. I then got classified last year and was at the World Championship that qualified the boat.
“When I was getting classified, it was mentioned that Paris was in two and a half years and I thought that was a funny thing to say – I was fresh finishing year 12 and I hadn’t decided what I really wanted to do. I thought if it was going to be a pathway it was going to be an LA 2028 pathway, so to be here with so many incredible athletes is amazing,” she said.
The mixed teams across the coxed fours and pairs will see strong representation from Australia, with both Lutze and Goffsassen saying the opportunity to compete in mixed teams has been a new and exciting element to their competitive rowing.
“The mixed crews in Para-rowing is quite special because it’s the only place that ever really does mixed crews. It’s been a learning curve, and I think it’s a compromise between the two genders, kind of molding the technique the way a boy and a girl apply power together to create something really special,” said Lutze.
Goffsassen said: “Everyone is from everywhere in Australia and we’ve got a lot of different personalities, but when we’re in the boat together we all have that one goal and it all just gels. I didn’t row with females until mid-last year and it has completely changed my rowing, in a really good way coming into Paris.”
The rowing competition gets underway at Vaires-Sur-Marne Nautical Stadium from August 30. Watch the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games on the 9Network and 9Now live and free, and on Stan Sport.
By: Lauren Ryan, Paralympics Australia
Published: 30 August 2024
