Olympia Aldersey

Personal

Aldersey was named Olympia by her parents as she was born during the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. In 2011, she graduated from St Peter's Girls School. She studies at the University of Adelaide, South Australia.

Club, youth and national career

Aldersey rows from the Adelaide Rowing Club.

She competed in the 2009 Australian Youth Olympic Festival where she won gold in the women's coxless pair and VIII and silver in the coxless four.

At that annual Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships Aldersey was seated in the South Australian VIII who competed for the Queen's Cup in 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016. She competed for the Nell Slater Trophy in the Interstate Women's Single Scull in 2011 representing South Australia.

International career

In 2010 in her 1st year of international competition Aldersey won a bronze medal at the Junior World Rowing Championships and won silver at the Youth Olympic Games with fellow South Australian Emma Basher. and

In July 2011 Olympia competed at the under 23 World Championships and placed fourth in the final of the women's coxless pair

At the 2014 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam Aldersey raced in Australia's double scull with Sally Kehoe. They finished third in the final and won the bronze medal. During the preliminary racing Kehoe and Aldersey set a world-record time for 2000m of 6:37.31. This record has stood since.

Aldersey was a member of the Australian VIII who initially missed qualification for the 2016 Rio Olympics but received a late call up following the Russian drug scandal. WADA had discovered Russian state sponsored drug testing violations and the IOC acted to protect clean athletes and set strict entry guidelines for Russian athletes resulting in most of their rowers and nearly all of their crews being withdrawn from the Olympic regatta. The Australian women's VIII had dispersed two months earlier after their failure to qualify but reconvened, travelled at the last minute to Rio and borrowed a shell. They finished last in their heat, last in the repechage and were eliminated.