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Seven young UWA rowers are representing Australia over the next few weeks.

But they are discovering, along with other elite athletes, that funding can be even harder to win than the race.

Arts student Thea Adamson wrote to many people and organisations, on behalf of her teammates in the Under-23 World Rowing Championships, asking for financial help.

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Bill Louden has awarded Thea and her four Under-23 teammates $500 each to help with their $6,750 travel costs.

Thea is competing with her schoolfriend and long-term rowing partner Hannah Jansen, who is studying Sport Science. The two rowed together in the eight that won the Head of the River for Perth College in 2008. They have continued their rowing while at UWA .

Timothy Widdicombe (Engineering/ Commerce) and Thomas Meares (Science) join the young women in the under-23 squad, which is leaving on 23 June to take part in the Henley Royal Regatta, then to compete in the Under-23 World Rowing Championships in Lithuania in July. Tim and Tom are in a lightweight four and Thea and Hannah row as a lightweight double.

Thea and Hannah are also part of a quad team with fellow UWA student Maia Simmonds (Law/Science). They will compete in the Senior A Non-Olympic World Rowing Championships in Bulgaria in August. Maia, Thea, Hannah, Tom and Tim have all benefited from the Vice-Chancellery grant.

Perry Ward (Science) is rowing in the men's lightweight eight and David Watts (Commerce) has been selected in the men's eight for the Under-23 championships in Bulgaria.

Thea said she had worked as a rowing coach for Guildford Grammar School over the summer to try to save money for the trip, but training twice a day every day and keeping up with her studies meant she could not keep up a part-time job.

"It's getting harder and harder to do any fund-raising too," said Hannah. "You have to show how any fund-raising effort will benefit your club and often you have to show how it will benefit the community before you can even sell sausages outside the local hardware."

She and Thea said if they could not find any more financial help, they would turn to their parents again.

"My parents have spent close to $20,000 on my rowing trips and it makes me feel sick to think of it," Hannah said.

Thea said that the students had to pay their own way for the Under-23 championships in Lithuania but as members of the Senior A squad in Bulgaria they would normally have their fares paid for them. "But this year, because of the Olympics and all the money going in that direction, we're not sure if that's going to happen."

Fellow Western Australian athlete Tommaso D'Orsogna, an Olympic swimmer, was quoted recently in The West Australian newspaper, saying that, without sponsors, the grants from the Australian Institute of Sport and Swimming Australia were not enough to live on.

He said he was lucky to be supported by his parents but many swimmers were not able to afford to continue their sporting careers.

Published in UWA News , 11June 2012