Everyone's a winner
by Andrew Lees
What’s
your preferred way to unwind at the end of the day?
Some read books, some make scale models of trains, others prefer a hot cuppa, a comfy couch and a soothing hour of British mystery. But Associate Professor David Cropley, Director: Systems Engineering and Evaluation Centre ditched that in favour of rapturous crowds, Australian record times and no fewer than three gold medals in the emerging sport of indoor rowing.
The 10th Australian Masters Games have just wound up in Adelaide, with more than 10,000 competitors going toe-to-toe in sports including athletics, weight-lifting and dragon boat racing.
But Cropley prefers his boats fixed to the floor. The experienced river rower says indoor rowing uses the rowing machines he uses for training, and says a background in physics may have given him the academic’s edge.
“Having a background in physics gave me a better appreciation of some of what’s going on in a rowing machine,” he said.
“That makes things a bit more interesting – there’s a lot of technique involved in rowing related to most efficiently getting the power of your muscles in use to get the machine going.”
Cropley has been rowing for 18 months, and only decided to compete in indoor rowing once he saw it listed in the Masters Games schedule.
And he’s glad he did, with one time at fourth best, and one time the best in Australia this year in his age group of 36-42.
“I’m happy my times were competitive, it’s really fired up my enthusiasm to take it more seriously now and I’ll definitely be entering again next year,” he said.
In other successes, Document Services printer Cathy Wood was part of SAWSA United, a soccer team that absolutely pummelled the only other Adelaide team 5-0 in the final to take home the gold.
Wood says her gold medal is sitting on her kitchen bench.
“It’s not in the sock drawer,” she laughed. “I’m not sure what I’ll do with it – probably get it engraved.”
Senior Research Fellow at the Systems Engineering and Evaluation Centre and runner Michael Harris snared a bronze medal in the 5000m – what sets his success apart is the fact this medal is his first ever.
“I ran a marathon early last year and I’ve done quite a few half marathons but most of them get medals just for finishing,” he said.
“My usual place is fourth, so this is my first real athletics medal.”
Harris finished with a time of 23:18 minutes, and says he will definitely be back next year to give it another go.