Jack's Story
Fast Facts
Sport: Rowing
Event: Men’s Quadruple Scull
Olympic History: Tokyo 2020 (bronze)
Coach: Mark Prater and Rhett Ayliffe (Head Coach)
Highlights: Bronze medal at Tokyo 2020; 3rd at the 2016 World Rowing U23 Championships, in the BM4+ event
Year Born: 1995
Born: Subiaco, WA
Junior Club: Trinity College (Perth, WA)
About Jack
At age 25, Jack Cleary has had a cross-continental rowing journey unlike too many others at his age.
After being declared Captain of Boats at Perth’s Trinity College, Cleary left Western Australia for Northern California to pursue an American collegiate career whilst earning an Interdisciplinary Degree in Globalisation and Development.
Whilst at the University of California, Berkeley, Cleary won three Pac-12 Championship silver Medals as well as two bronze and one silver medal at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships Regatta.
Whilst at Berkeley, Cleary joined his Australian compatriots in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, to contest the U23 World Championships. In Cleary’s Coxed Four event alongside Sam Hardy, James Croxford, Louis Snelson and Louis Copolov, the crew finished in fifth place amongst the best young rowers on the globe.
At the completion of his senior collegiate season, Cleary travelled home to Australia to join the elusive Reinhold Batschi National Training Centre on Lake Burley Griffin.
Ahead of the Tokyo Games, Cleary was overseen by coaches Ian Wright, Mark Prater and Andrew Randell, where within an extremely competitive environment, the Berkeley alum was named to the 2021 Australian Rowing Team as part of a Men’s Quadruple Scull fitted with immense expectation for Tokyo.
Alongside Caleb Antill, Cameron Girdlestone and Luke Letcher, Cleary won a bronze medal in Tokyo, finishing behind the Dutch and British crews.
Needing a top two finish in their Heat to progress directly to the Final and avoid the repechage, the men faced a three-way battle with China and Great Britain for second position as the Dutch crew stormed ahead to take the win. Rating 42 in the final throws of the race, they took the second and qualified for the Final.
Facing the Netherlands, Great Britain, Italy, Poland and Estonia in the Final, the Aussies fought hard throughout the race and fought back in the second half of the course to take the bronze. The result came during the ‘the hour of power,’ a moment in time when Australia’s Men’s and Women’s Fours stormed home for gold and the Men’s and Women’s Quadruple Sculls claimed bronze. The four medals won by Australian rowing crews, along with swimmer Ariarne Titmus' gold medal in the 200 metres freestyle, contributed to the most successful period in the history of the Australian Olympic Team.
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