The 2011 Australian men’s rowing quad, led by 2008 Olympian Dan Noonan, is taking time out from training on the Huon River in Tasmania to visit a local primary school as part of the AOC's Olympic Day celebrations.
The 2011 Australian men’s rowing quad, led by 2008 Olympian Dan Noonan, is taking time out from training on the Huon River in Tasmania to visit a local primary school as part of the Australian Olympic Committee’s Olympic Day celebrations.
Noono, as he is known to his mates, along with two of his 2008 Olympic crew James McRae and Chris Morgan will visit Lenah Valley Primary school at 2pm on Monday 20 June 2011.
The rowing Olympians, who narrowly missed a medal at the Beijing Olympics, will spend an hour chatting with Kinder to Year 6 students about sport and the Olympic Games.
“We are meeting with the Kinder to Year 2 students first,” Noonan said. “I think it is important to share with them three things: sport is fun; being active is great for your health; and try to participate in as many different sports as you can.”
Noonan says the message for Year 3 – 6 students will include those three key points as well as the importance of having dreams and following them.
“We all pretended to be Steve Waugh in the summer and David Campese in the winter,” Noonan said. “That is what being a kid is all about – having dreams.”
Noonan, McRae, Morgan and Karsten Forsterling have been training for the past two years out of a small Tasmanian town called Huonville.
A few days after their visit to Lenah Valley, the men’s quad leave on a European rowing tour, which culminates at the 2011 World Rowing Championships where they will attempt to qualify for the 2012 London Olympic Games.
The European tour includes competing at the Henley Royal Regatta in England (29 June-3 July) and World Cup 3 in Lucerne, Switzerland (8-10 July), before attending a national camp at the Australian Institute of Sport’s European Training Centre in Varese, Italy, in preparation for the world championships.
Olympic Day is an international community event celebrating sport, education and culture. In Australia, Olympians are returning to school to talk about their experience at the Olympic Games and the positive impact sport has had on their life.
Through the AOC’s education program, the a.s.p.i.r.e. school network, schools are provided with a framework to create their own Olympic Day activities that reflect on the a.s.p.i.r.e. values developed by the Australian Olympic Team.
AOC
