World Rowing announces the 2009 Awards winners

FISA, the International Rowing Federation, is proud to announce that the winners of the 2009 World Rowing Awards have been selected for each of the five awards categories Coach of the Year, Female Crew of the Year, Male Crew of the Year and Distinguished Services to Rowing. This year also marks the launch of the Adaptive Crew of the Year Award.

Six rowing personalities shall be honoured this year to recognise their outstanding performance throughout the 2009 World Rowing season.

The winners of this year's awards are:

• 2009 World Rowing Coach of the Year: Tom Terhaar - Head Women's Coach, USA
• 2009 World Rowing Female Crew of the Year: Erin Cafaro, Susan Francia - USA Women's Pair (W2-)
• 2009 World Rowing Male Crew of the Year: Mahe Drysdale - NZL Men's Single (M1x)
• 2009 World Rowing Adaptive Crew of the Year: Tom Aggar - GBR Adaptive Men's Single (ASM1x)
• 2009 World Rowing Distinguished Service to International Rowing: Don Rowlands , NZL

The awards will be handed out on the occasion of the 2010 World Rowing Gala Dinner, which is to take place during the annual Coaches Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on Saturday 23 January 2010.For the first time this year, the World Rowing award nominations were submitted by the general public. Finalists were selected by the FISA Council and the winners were carefully chosen by FISA's Executive Committee during a meeting last month.

2009 World Rowing Coach of the Year
Name & Team
USA Tom Terhaar	USA Women's head coach since 2001, Terhaar's achievements this year include the W2- and W8+ gold medals in the World Rowing Championships. Past achievements with the US women's team also include world champion titles in the women's eight in 2007 2006 and 2005, 2002. His crews also achieved World Championship titles in W4- (2007 and 2003), W8+ Olympic gold in 2008 (the first gold medal in this event since 1984) and Olympic silver in 2004 (first medal since 1984).

2009 World Rowing Female Crew of the Year
Crew	Achievements in 2009	Other achievements
USA W2- Erin Cafaro, Zsuzsana (Susan) Francia	2009 World Rowing Champions in W2- and W8+ RWC III - 2nd in the W8+	Erin Cafaro and Susan Francia have been rowing together in the US women's eight for several years, but only came together as a pair in 2009 having both made different attempts in this boat with other partners. Their first international event as a pair in Poznan this year resulted in a close win.

2009 World Rowing Male Crew of the Year
Crew	Achievements in 2009	Other achievements
NZL M1x Mahe Drysdale	2009 World Champion 2009 RWC II - 1st 2009 RWC III - 1st	Four consecutive World Championship titles and an Olympic bronze in Beijing.

2009 World Rowing Adaptive Crew of the Year
Crew	Achievements in 2009	Other achievements
GBR ASM1x Tom Aggar	2009 World Rowing Champion & WBT	Tom Aggar has domintated his boat class since 2007 when he appeared on the scene and took gold at the Munich World Rowing Championships. He is 2008 Paralympic Champion and World Champion 2009 when he also set the current world best time of 4:51.48.

2009 World Rowing Distinguished Service to International Rowing
Name
NZL Don Rowlands	Chairman of the 1978 World Championship Organising Committee in New Zealand, many considered this one of the best ever championships. His outstanding performance with the New Zealand organising committee earned him the Olympic Order medal in 1982. He has dedicated decades of Service to rowing in Oceania and is an Honorary FISA Council Member. Rowlands is a former New Zealand rower. He has a silver and gold medal from the 1950 and 1951 British Empire Games in the men's eight and competed in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. He is still very actively involved in the sport.