Rowing Australia has named its initial Prospective Squad that will go through the selection process in the lead up to the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The returns of Olympians Duncan Free (QLD) and Sam Conrad (QLD) amongst the 63 athletes that have been chosen are the two biggest additions to the Australian team that won a record 10 medals at the 2011 World Rowing Championships in Slovenia earlier this year.

Free comes back into the Olympic selection mix after he sustained a fractured femur after being hit by a car while cross training on a bike on the Gold Coast in May, while Conrad will have the opportunity to make his first Australian team since the 2008 Beijing Games after a bad run of injury and illness.

The first round of selection trials will be held in December (15-18) with athletes facing a 5km time trial on the Nepean River on December 15, before switching to racing at the Sydney International Regatta Centre for the remaining three days.

National High Performance Director Andrew Matheson says there will a tight battle over the coming months to decide crews for 2012.

“We enjoyed some success in 2011 at the world championships but we are well aware that the competition will be even harder in London next year,” Matheson said.

“The racing in Slovenia was extremely tough across heats, repechages, semi-finals and finals and we are under no illusions that we will have to step up another level.

“There is a great core group of athletes in the system now however and we are confident that come London we will have the best possible crews in place to achieve Olympic and Paralympic success.”

The final round of Olympic selection trials will be held at the Sydney International Regatta Centre from March 23-April 1 next year, before Rowing Australia nominates its crews to the Australian Olympic Committee who will then officially name the team.

Australia has so far qualified 10 boats (men’s double scull, men’s quad scull, women’s double scull, women’s quad scull, men’s pair, men’s four, men’s eight, women’s pair, women’s lightweight double scull, men’s lightweight four) for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The full Prospective Squad is available here>>>

Rowing Australia