Image Credit: World Rowing
How do you define greatness? A mind-bending feat that surpasses expectation and rationality? A moment of authentic surprise that inverts the weight of pressing odds? Or perhaps an incision in the linear unfurling of your heart?
In sport, we are quick to anoint greatness upon each other. A performance that impresses us is often bestowed the virtue of greatness before it can even truly be understood. It is easy to attach brilliance onto bravery and boldness but sometimes the two should not be conflated. True greatness should combine mastery, magnanimity and more than a hint of magic.
The Olympic Games is our ultimate magic show. A procession of truly elite talent, operating at the pinnacle of their sport and thrust forward into a limelight fostered by four years of relative translucency. These two weeks are stitched into the very fabric of competition, dating back to the lore of Ancient Greece, and have transcended the politics of modern society to become the ultimate marker in sporting excellence. To win Olympic Gold gives you immortality of a rare and timeless specification – your story will be perpetuated forevermore, carried forward by the whispers of generations to come, who too aim to climb those sacred steps and join this club of champions. Emerging over the horizon, this time in the blue and red hue of palatial Paris, we are ready for the very fastest in rowing to be crowned.
Step forward, my friends – The Olympic Games have come.
The Stats
Country
Australia
Crew
Tara Rigney
Age
25 years
Olympic Record
Seventh in the W2X at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games
2024 Competitive Record
2024 World Rowing Cup 1: N/A
2024 World Rowing Cup 2: 2nd (W1X)
2024 World Rowing Cup 3: 1st (W1X)
The Profile
Rigney, from Sydney University Boat Club, made her senior international debut in 2021; after winning the Australian Championships in the double with Amanda Bateman, she was selected for this boat class for the Tokyo Olympics, so her first senior race was the Olympics. She and Bateman won the B-Final in Tokyo to give them seventh overall. Post Tokyo, she moved into the single, winning medals at both the second and third 2022 World Rowing Cups and ending the season with a bronze medal at the world championships. She repeated that performance in 2023, finishing as runner-up to Florijn at the third 2023 World Rowing Cup (and to Alexandra Foester of Germany at the second edition) and then taking her second world championship bronze medal. This season she again raced at the second and third 2024 World Rowing Cups, again finishing as runner up to Florijn in Lucerne before claiming her first 2024 World Rowing Cup gold in Florijn’s absence in Poznan (Australia’s first 2024 World Rowing Cup gold in the women’s single since 2016).
About The Author
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