Double joy for Thornycroft

Sport
Barely two weeks after her engagement to her long-time sweetheart Peter Purcell-Gilpin, Zimbabwe‘s rowing poster girl Micheen Thornycroft crafted her own history — becoming the first African to win the Fillipi Rowing Spirit Award.

Barely two weeks after her engagement to her long-time sweetheart Peter Purcell-Gilpin, Zimbabwe‘s rowing poster girl Micheen Thornycroft crafted her own history — becoming the first African to win the Fillipi Rowing Spirit Award.

BY MUNYARADZI MADZOKERE

Mouse, as Thornycroft is affectionately known, beat four other finalists — Rain de Jager and Mzwandile Sotsaka both from South Africa as well as Vladimir Gluhovic (Serbia) and Seun Olusanya from Great Britain — to win the award, which is in its fifth year.

The latest success comes while she is still in celebratory mood having recently engaged to Purcell-Gilpin on February 3 The Filippi Spirit Award is open to university rowers worldwide and honours those who have demonstrated the core values of rowing in their social, academic and sporting life.

“It is incredible to win such an awesome award as there are so many amazing people nominated for it every year,” she told the World Rowing Federation (Fisa) website soon after she was announced the winner.

“I have always wanted to be able to give back to my university rowing club as they gave me so much over the years. It is so exciting to be able to give them a brand new Filippi eight. It is more than I ever dreamed I’d be able to give.”

Thornycroft, a two-time Olympic rower for Zimbabwe, is at Rhodes University in South Africa where she is studying for a Master’s Degree in Human Kinetics and Ergonomics, focusing on elite athlete performance centres specific to Africa.

As a result, the Rhodes University rowing club will receive a custom-built, top-of-the-range Filippi eight racing shell as recognition for the winner’s involvement in the club. This will also help the club to develop more young rowers in the future.

The previous winners of the award include James Cook (Great Britain) in 2013, Franz Gravenhorst (Germany) in 2014, Kirsten van Fossen (United States) in 2015 and Nils Jakob Hoff (Norway) in 2016.

The rowing Association of Zimbabwe (RAZ) has also taken the opportunity to celebrate Thornycroft’s recent triumph, which speaks volumes about the sport in Zimbabwe.

“The joy of the rowing community in Zimbabwe was made complete over the weekend when the good news was received that our Zimbabwe Olympic rower Micheen had won the prestigious 2017 Filippi Spirit Award,” RAZ president Andrew Lorimer told Standardsport.

“Thornycroft has been a great role model to encourage many junior athletes to take up rowing and to strive for success in their personal and sporting lives.”

He said he was delighted that rowing in Zimbabwe and in southern Africa was getting stronger and stronger and that lots of new rowers were now taking up the sport.

Lorimer also hailed twin young Zimbabwean rowers Rory and Patrick Plunket who won gold in the senior boys’ double scull event at the prestigious Buffalo Regatta in South Africa last week. Rory also won gold in the Senior Boys’ single scull event.

RAZ also held their first national championships of the season, which attracted a record entry of 142 competitors from seven rowing clubs at Mazowe Dam last weekend.

Junior World Championship and Youth Olympic Games hopefuls Lorryn Bass from Chisipite and Peterhouse’s Kenneth Raynor dominated the women and men single events. Both went on to win the double and quads events, making it a clean sweep for both scullers.

Raynor partnered Brendan Eggersglusc to scoop the Men’s A doubles scull event in the process breaking the boys Under-19 Zimbabwe national course record at Mazowe Dam for 2 000 metres.

Chisipite High School and St George‘s College were the overall winners.

“The Regatta proved to be a great success and has prepared the athletes well for the main event of the year coming in two weeks’ time. They travel to South Africa to participate in the South Africa Schools Championships in Pretoria from March 2 to 4,” rowing coach Kristine Johnson said.