Editor at Large Louise Evans meets the rower with the Houdini touch who can literally float her own boat.
Amanda Bateman craves that transcendental state when she’s so in sync with her double sculls partner that their boat takes flight.
“The boat doesn’t even feel like it’s in the water,” the 27-year-old, Paris-bound Olympic rower said. “It’s floating above the water. It’s pretty magical.
“It’s a very hard state to achieve. It is something that you have to work very hard to earn. You get it when you are super in-tune and have that synchronicity with each other.
“But once it gets you, it’s like a drug. You want it again. It’s very addictive. You have to strive for it every single stroke and demand it from yourself and from your partner. Ideally it stays with you – that floating, magical feeling.”
Bateman has been studying the shape of water since she was a kid growing up on Victoria’s beaches where she followed her two older sisters into the surf.
She became a surf lifesaver at Beaumaris Club, 20km south east of Melbourne, competing in board, ski and beach events and learning about teamwork and commitment.
“I am a proud lifesaver. You can find me on the beach when I’m not rowing,” she boasts.
She took up rowing via Firbank Girls Grammar in Brighton, Melbourne and the Mercantile Rowing Club after watching her older sister Katrina qualify for international teams and head-off for a European summer of fierce sun, fun and competition.
“My sister was a high-performance athlete in the Australian Rowing Team and I saw the opportunity to go to Europe once a year, it seemed like a great way to get a free holiday,” she laughs.
“That got me into the sport but I stayed because I fell in love with the challenge it presents on a daily basis. It is a sport that is relentless. It doesn’t matter if you are tired or sore, it demands the same out of you, regardless of how much you can give.
“I also like the relationship you need to build to get the boat moving fast. There is no hiding, you are 50 per cent. You have to bring your best and bring out the best in each other.”
Bateman’s first Olympic campaign was in Tokyo 2021 when she competed with Sydney University rower Tara Rigney in the double sculls, finishing seventh in the world.
“Tokyo was epic,” Bateman said. “To go to an Olympics in the middle of a pandemic and bring joy and entertainment to a world that was going through a hard and dark time – it was an honour.”
For Paris, Rigney has moved to the single sculls and Bateman will partner with Harriet Hudson, who won bronze in Tokyo in the quad scull (third seat). Hudson, 26, started rowing in school at Brisbane’s Somerville House and continued with the Sydney Rowing Club while studying for an applied science (occupational therapy) degree at Sydney University.
Bateman describes Hudson as a metronome, the time-keeping machine that keeps regular rhythm because “she never misses a beat”.
“Harriet and I have only been together since March but we’ve definitely established that respect and trust already. It comes from working together side-by-side day after day, seeing each other push ourselves to the limit, and then keep going.
“Harriet is in the stroke seat at the front and I’m bow – at the back. I cross the finish line first and my job is the conductor. I make the calls. I am the lookout. I give Harriet the information. She sets the speed and tone. I speak when necessary and yell when it’s vital.
“At the start I am counting down from five minutes. We talk through our race plan and what we want to achieve at each stage of the race. At three minutes we’re high-fiving each other, wishing each other luck and reassuring each other that we have each other’s back. With two minutes to go we’re taking deep breaths, staying level and calm and we’re ready to go.”
If it comes, that magical feeling of floating across the water, that perfect mystical state can manifest at about 1000m – the halfway mark.
“We’ll both be in the moment, sitting tall and proud. Our legs will be burning but our heads will be so focused, almost like we have blinkers on. We are on task. It’s hurting like you wouldn’t believe but you don’t let it in. We train everyday to make sure our minds are not swallowed by that.
‘With 500m to go, the crowd is getting louder and the two of us become quieter. We are just focused on the sound of each other’s voices and getting our bow in front.”
The fight for medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics will be formidable.
Young Romanian duo Simona Radis and Ancuta Bodnar are the defending Olympic and reigning dual world champions who have rowed together since 2019. Bodnar, 25, declared they don’t just want to win in Paris “we also want to break the world-best time”.
The problem with having such a dominant winning streak is that you become the hunted and while Bateman acknowledges the Romanians “are almost undefeated since 2019, it’ll be a very close race’. “We’re all within two seconds, the Lithuanians (world silver medallists) too and the USA (world bronze medallists).”
Competing over the weekend in the third biggest regatta after the Olympics and World Championships, Bateman and Hudson finished just 0.78s behind the winning US boat at the World Rowing Cup II in Lucerne, Switzerland.
It was the first international meet for this new pairing and they used the opportunity to blow out the cobwebs, showcase their boat speed and demonstrate their medal potential for Paris.
It’s taken a long time for Australian women to rise up the world ranks and become Olympic rowing medallists.
The breakthrough came 40 years at the 1984 Los Angeles Games when Australia won bronze in the coxed four. Another 12 years passed before Australian women won gold when Megan Marcks (nee Still) and Kate Allen (Slatter) became the 1996 Olympic coxless pairs champions in Atlanta.
No sweep through Australian women’s Olympic rowing history is complete without highlighting the great two-time world champion Kim Brennan who has a complete set of Games medals: gold 2016 Rio single sculls, 2012 London silver double sculls with Brooke Pratley plus bronze in the singles.
Bateman and Hudson are now members of one of the strongest Olympic women’s rowing teams to ever leave Australian shores with at least four strong medal chances heading to Paris.
“We have a team of fierce young women,” Bateman said. “It is a spectacular feeling to be part of that. We’ve all worked harder and longer. To have my name next to these women is a very humbling experience and I’m proud of it.”
The floating feeling Bateman craves will return if they cross the finish line first.
“When you win it’s total elation, a sense of profound proudness for what we have done together. We’re doing a lot of heavy breathing. We won’t be able to stand up for a while. Your mind is dizzy. You’re floating.”
That’s the magic that happens when you put on that Olympic uniform and “put the Australian coat of arms over your heart”.
NOTE – Australia has at least six strong rowing medal chances in Paris. You can read about the other Olympic medal contenders here: women’s pair | women’s single sculls | men’s eight | women’s eight | men’s four
Louise Evans is an award-winning journalist who has worked around Australia and the world as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and media executive for media platforms including The Sydney Morning Herald (eight years), The Australian (11 years) and Australian Associated Press (six years in London, Beijing and Sydney).
A women sports’ pioneer, Louise was the first female sports journalist employed by The Sydney Morning Herald and the first female sports editor at The Australian. Louise went on to work at six Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games and numerous world sporting championships and grand slam tennis events.
Louise is the Founding Editor of AAP FactCheck, the Creator of #WISPAA – Women in Sport Photo Action Awards and national touring Exhibition and the author and producer of the Passage to Pusan book, documentary and exhibition.
In 2019 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Honour for services to the media and sport and named an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Woman of Influence for services to the arts, culture and sport.
In 2020 she won a NSW Volunteer of the Year Award plus the NSW Government Community Service Award for her women-in-sport advocacy work.
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