Oarsome Foursome
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 The 1990 Oarsome Foursome | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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The Oarsome Foursome is the nickname for an Australian men's rowing coxless four crew who competed with a clear lineage between 1990 and 2012, winning two Olympic gold medals and one silver medal, two world championships as a coxless four, and additional world championship titles in coxed boats. Members of the Oarsome Foursome when split into pairs placed first and second in the 1998 World Rowing Championships and won gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
They first achieved success seated as Nick Green (bow), Mike McKay (two), Samuel Patten (three) and James Tomkins stroke, when they won gold at the 1990 World Rowing Championships in Lake Barrington.[1] They were coached by Noel Donaldson a former Victorian and national representative coxswain who had taken to coaching after competitive retirement. Donaldson encouraged periods of relaxation within the crew's training regime and it's been reported that the rowers spent the morning of that final indulging in a relaxed round of golf.[2]
2nd combination
Patten was replaced by Andrew Cooper in 1991, and another World Championship title was won in Vienna 1991.[3] Around this time they were accused by former Norwegian coach Thor Nilsson of not being serious enough about their training.[2] In lead-up races before the 1992 Olympics the crew's dominance was challenged by fours from the Netherlands and the USA but after a seat swap by Donaldson between Cooper and Green and the adoption of the new short "cleaver" blades they won gold at Barcelona 1992.[4] The win led them to become household names, and they were crowned Moomba Monarchs (popularly called Kings of Moomba) in 1993,[5] and appeared in television advertisements for the Australian canned fruit brand Goulburn Valley.[6]