Australian Rowing Championships
Men's Senior A Coxless Four

Code	Club	Crew Members
MRS	MERCANTILE/SYDNEY/VIS	Robert Walker, Michael McKay, Robert Jahrling, Richard Weare
MUS	MELBOURNE/UNI/SYDNEY	Christian Ryan, Matthew Long, Paul Myers, Paul Grey
MUD	MELBOURNE/UNI/ DARAMALAN	Nigel Sullivan, Nick Porzig, Jaime Fernandez, David Porzig
SYM	SYDNEY/MOSMAN/AIS	Alastair Gordon, Daniel Burke, Zack Kirkham, Stuart McRae
SYU	SYDNEY/UTS/MOSMAN	Peter Murphy, Stuart Welch, David Weightman, Robert Scott
AVO	AVON/WAIKATO (NZ)	David Schaper, Scott Brownlee, Toni Dunlop, Robert Hellstrom
CUA	CUANCDONG PROVINCE(CHN)	Changyue Li, Shanging Liao, Youdong Sun, Renxu Ji
CUR	CURTIN UNIVERSITY/WAIS	Thomas Atkinson, Ben Hopkins, Ron Snook, Glen Loftus
UT1	UTS/NSWIS 1	Ben Dodwell, James Stewart, Geoff Stewart, Bo Hanson
UT2	UTS/NSWIS 2	Dmitri Colebatch, Adam Woodward, TBA, TBA

The UT1 and AVO crews won the silver medal and placed 4th in this event for Australia and New Zealand, respectively, in the 1999 World Championships. All 8 men in those two crews raced in pairs on the Penrith course this week. The two pairs now in UT1 placed 2nd and 3rd. Brownlee and Hellstrom from AVO (NZ) placed 5th. The other half of the AVO (NZ) boat, Dunlop and Schaper, won the C final in the pairs competition. Weightman and Scott of the SYU crew won the pairs event by 3 seconds. Their partners in the four, Murphy and Welch, placed 3rd in the B Final of the pairs. McKay and Jahrling of the MRS boat placed 4th in the pairs and are teaming up with Walker and Weare, who did not race in the pairs. Another crew to watch is the MUD boat, as they also raced in the pairs, placing 6th in the A Final and 6th in the B Final. Overall, the strongest combination, based on their most recent FISA Championship experience and their pair performances this week, seems to be UT1 with Dodwell, Stewart, Stewart and Hanson, the reigning silver medalists at the 1999 Worlds. But watch out for the MRS crew which is full of experience and has two men with fresh legs who did not race in the pairs, and do not count out AVO, SYU or MUD.

Post-Heats / Pre-Finals Analysis
Saturday, March 10, 2000

The favorite for first in this event following the heats still has to be the 1999 World silver medalist UT1 crew followed closely by the 1999 Worlds 4th place crew from New Zealand, both having won their heats. After tough pairs racing since Monday, with the first three to qualify from today's heats for the fours finals, and with no real pressure in Heat 1 on the first two crews, they appear to have backed off after the first 500 meters. The pairs Champions, Weightman and Scott, also qualified by taking third in the first Heat, and if the reported splits are correct, they were 5 seconds down on the third place crew with 500m to go. It will be interesting to see if they can turn the tables again on the UT1 crew in the fours final, as they did in the pairs final. The times in the second heat were significantly faster than those in the first heat, but the second heat was hotly contested all the way down the course by all four crews, unlike the first heat. The race prediction bulletin that follows is probably reliable only at the first 500m mark, and less reliable by 1000m mark. After the 1000m mark, the times comparisons between the heats have no reliability as a prediction of performance in the Finals. For that reason, the prediction report run here has been cut off at the 1000m mark.

Assuming the crews find themselves in these relative positions with 1000m to go, both the UT1 silver medalist crew and the MUD crew will have to close in on the fast starting New Zealanders by the 3rd 500m interval. It will be up to the New Zealanders to bear down in the 3rd 500m interval to come out winners. For Weightman and Scott to repeat as Champions in this event, as they were in pairs, they will have to show more early speed, as they did in the pairs final. The way things look now, UT1 first, AVON (NZ) second, and unless Weightman and Scott pull it off again, then MUS, SYU amd MUD pretty much together with SYM in 6th place.

A first 1000m only composite of these crews' times in their heats follows:

 2000 AUSTRALIAN ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS - PREDICTION    RACE # 709 

                  OLYMPIC MEN'S FOUR W/O FINALS


LANE CREW RELATIVE POSITIONS                      ELAPSED   SPLIT
                            1500*           CREW   TIME     TIME
         ---+---+---+---+---+---+  
  7  SYU            SYU>                     MUS  1:26.77  1:26.77
  6  SYM                SYM>                 AVO  1:26.77  1:26.77
  5  MUD                MUD>                 UT1  1:27.37  1:27.37
  4  UT1                    UT1>             SYM  1:29.61  1:29.61
  3  MUS                     MUS>            MUD  1:29.70  1:29.70
  2  AVO                     AVO>            SYU  1:31.58  1:31.58
         ---+---+---+---+---+---+
                            1000*
         ---+---+---+---+---+---+
  7  SYU     SYU>                            AVO  2:55.94  1:29.17
  6  SYM           SYM>                      MUS  2:58.13  1:31.36
  5  MUD         MUD>                        UT1  3:01.50  1:34.12
  4  UT1           UT1>                      SYM  3:01.58  1:31.97
  3  MUS                 MUS>                MUD  3:02.94  1:33.23
  2  AVO                     AVO>            SYU  3:04.86  1:33.28
         ---+---+---+---+---+---+


COPYRIGHT 1999 ** JAMCO SOFTWARE FOR SPLITS ** RACE NO.  709 
http://www.jamcotimes.com

The performances of these competitors in previous Olympic and senior World Championship Regattas follow: