James Tomkins (rower)

James Tomkins ( born August 19, 1965 in Sydney ) is an Australian rower. With three Olympic victories and seven world titles in two classes of boat without a pilot, two with coxswain, four (with and without coxswain) and aft he is the most successful rowers of Australia of all time.

Biography

The 2 meter Tomkins began at the age of 14 years with the rowing and soon became one of the most outstanding athletes of his school, Carey Baptist Grammar School in Melbourne. From 1985 he was a member of the Australian Roller Team. With this he won the 1986 in Nottingham his first world title at the Olympic Summer Games in Seoul in 1988 he finished fifth.

In 1990, he began to row in the coxless four. In this discipline, he won two gold medals at the World Championships ( 1990 at the Lake Barrington in Tasmania, in 1991 in Vienna). Together with Andrew Cooper, Nicholas Green and Michael McKay, he also won the race at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona and was the first time Olympic champion. He repeated this success four years later in Atlanta (where Drew Ginn Andrew Cooper replaced ).

1998 won Tomkins on the Fühlinger lake at Cologne two world titles, in the coxed four and coxless pairs (together with Nicholas Green ). 1999 subject to Tomkins ' four in the Australian qualification competitions. He therefore focused on the coxless pairs and teamed up with Drew Ginn, with which he became world champion in St. Catharines in the same year.

Tomkins and Ginn were planning to participate in the Summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000, but Ginn injured his back and had to temporarily take a break. By Matthew Long as a substitute Tomkins was in the Olympic race third, just 1.3 seconds behind the winners. In 2001, he worked in the U.S. during one season as coach. Again with Ginn as rowing partner, Tomkins reached at the 2002 World Championships in Seville in fourth place and took out a year later in Milan sixth world title. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens Tomkins succeeded the third Olympic victory, he stood so firmly as the most successful Australian rower of all time.

As a member of the Australian rowing eight Tomkins reached at the 2007 World Championships at the Rowing Course in eighth place (2nd in the B final after the People's Republic of China) and qualified in the following year for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. He represented Australia at the opening ceremony as the flag bearer. The Australian roller came across a good performance in pre-and Repechage the Olympic final. There, however, he had to settle for sixth place.

In August 2012, Tomkins was elected for a term of eight years in the athletes commission of the IOC.