By Abby Walter

The Wimmera River at Dimboola hosted rowers from across the state at the weekend for a triumphant regatta and Head of the Wimmera event. 

Dimboola Rowing Club president and regatta secretary Michael Salter said the committee worked hard to host the event’s first iteration since 2019. 

“Clubs are still coming out of COVID-19 and this time last year all the major waterways were flooding, so there were no regattas and no training,” he said. 

“We didn’t have the same number of athletes this year as we did in 2019. 

“The clubs were there – we had 20 clubs attend – but they didn’t bring as many rowers.

“We were extremely happy. We all love rowing and being part of it – to see all the boats on the water.”

Mr Salter said the weather was brilliant for the two days despite some wind on Saturday morning. 

“It takes a lot of work to set up a rowing course and we had some great people of the Dimboola community who weren’t necessarily on the committee, lend a hand to set up,” he said. 

“We think we have a fantastic location to host a regatta.

“The event doesn’t belong to the rowing club, it belongs to the town and between food and accommodation, everyone wins when we have a big event like this.”

Ten crews competed for Dimboola Rowing Club and eight for Horsham City Rowing Club on Saturday. 

There were 78 short course sprint races. 

Dimboola’s Tori Menzel won female C Grade single scull and the club also came away with six seconds. 

Horsham City crews placed second on two occasions.

There were 11 Head of the Wimmera races on Sunday. 

A Dimboola crew won the female C Grade coxed quad scull in 28:35.01 minutes and a Horsham City crew won female Open eight in 31:21.36 minutes. 

Other winning crews included Mercantile, Corio Bay, Essendon, Melbourne Argonauts, Powerhouse, a Corio Bay and Barwon combination and a Power House Lake Eildon combination. 

Head of the Wimmera is a 6.2-kilometre time trial. 

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