It was all business when Freya Neville and Bella Scammell turned up at the trials for the Australian U19 rowing team.
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The Kinross pair underwent a gruelling four day camp last week where only the best were chosen to represent the green and gold.
But the best is exactly what they proved to be as both Neville and Scammell were selected for the women's quad scull team.
"We put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We were going there to trial, we weren't going there for experience," Scammell said.
Making up the four-person team will be two girls from Canberra Grammar School.
"We had already decided that we wanted to trial in the quad and we had two girls that were pretty similar to us, which worked well," Scammell said of their teammates.
"We did a time trial in the quad and got the prognostic time we needed and then they put us in singles to make sure we were all competent and that went well."
Due to the pandemic, no Australian rowing teams other than the Olympic team will travel internationally to compete this year, so the U19 team will not contest the World Championships in Bulgaria in August.
However, there will be a simulation 'World Cup' regatta at Sydney International Regatta Centre in June where the Australian U19, U21, U23 and Olympic rowing teams will compete.
Neville said the trials were a nerve-racking time.
"They didn't release the wind adjusted times, so in the middle of it we were all thinking we were going home," she said.
"Our coach facetimed us before we had a meeting with the selectors on the final day (to say we had been selected) and to be perfectly honest, I think Bel and I were jumping up and down and we rang our parents, it was a bit surreal."
They now face another eight weeks of training before the regatta, where it is hoped that teams from New Zealand will also compete. They will be coached by ex-Kinross rowing MIC & Olympian Sarah Cook.
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