This year marked Club Captain Nick Hudson’s first selection in the Senior A Team as a member of the Men’s Quad. Nick had a great domestic season with wins in the NSW Championships Single scull and the Nationals in the Double Scull and capped off with a big victory in the Kings Cup.
After the April selection trials Nick joined Dan Noonan, Jared Bidwell and 2008 Olympic hold medalist David Crawshay in Tasmania where, under the careful supervision of John Driessen, the crew prepared for the 2009 World Championships in Poznan, Poland.
With other Aussie crews they arrived in Europe only a couple of weeks earlier and did final preparation at Varese before heading to Poznan.
Their campaign at the Worlds started slowly with a fourth place in the second of three heats of the quad. They finished just two seconds behind Poland – 2008 Olympic Champions. So to the repechage –their last chance to progress to the semi-finals. The crew led all the way after grabbing a strong advantage of over two seconds in the first five hundred metres. In semi-final one they again faced the Olympic Champions and finished second to move to the final. The other semi was won by Germany with Italy close in second.
Finals day brought a strong tailwind and bumpy conditions on the course. Australia started fast –taking the race and the challenge to try and stop the Polish crews four year winning streak. The Aussie crew gained an advantage in the opening quarter leading by half a second at 500m –this was whittled down to 0.3 secs at the 1000 as the Poles started their move. Meanwhile Germany had dropped back and was nearly 3 secs behind the Aussies as the Poles took the lead in the third five hundred.
In the run to the line the Poles increased their advantage to 1.3secs as they claimed their fifth consecutive title. Australia having made the pace to the thousand were now hanging on as the Germans made a huge burst in the final 500. At the line Australia held on for silver just 0.2 secs ahead of Germany.
Excellent result for Australia and congratulations to our crew and especially our SUBC Captain –Nick Hudson.