Jessica Morrison


Jessica Morrison is an Australian representative rower and an Olympian. She is an Australian national champion and won two silver medals at the 2019 World Rowing Championships. She competed in the women's eight event at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She won two gold medals at Rowing World Cups in the 2019 international representative season.

Club and state rowing

Raised in Melbourne, Morrison's senior rowing was from the Mercantile Rowing Club.
Morrison was first selected to represent Victoria in the 2016 senior women's eight who won the Queen's Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships. She then rowed in the successful Victorian Queen's Cup eights of 2017 and 2018. She was in the 2019 Victorian crew who were finally beaten in the Queen's Cup by New South Wales after a fourteen year Victorian hold. At the New South Wales State Championships in February 2020 she rowed in crews which won the women's elite pair and the women's elite coxless four.

International representative rowing

Morrison was in the Australian women's eight 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set strict entry guidelines for Russian athletes resulting in most of their rowers and nearly all of their crews being withdrawn from the Olympic regatta.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 crew 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.
In 2019 Morrison was back in representative contention and picked in the Australian women's sweep squad for the 2019 international season. With Annabelle McIntyre she was selected to race the coxless pair and they took a silver medal at Rowing World Cup II in Poznan and won the gold in that event at WRC III in Rotterdam. Morrison and McIntyre also secured seats at the pace-setting end of the Australian women's eight and rowing at seven behind Molly Goodman, Morrison won gold in the eight in Poznan and silver in Rotterdam. Morrison was selected in Australia's women's eight and also with McIntyre to race Australia's coxless pair at the 2019 World Rowing Championships in Linz, Austria. The pair were looking for a top eleven finish to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics and the eight was seeking a top five finish. In the pair they won their heat, quarter-final and semi-final, thereby qualifying the boat for Tokyo 2020. In the A-final they led the race through the 3 x 500m marks but were pipped by New Zealand in a close finish and took the silver medal. In the Australian women's eight they placed second in their heat, came through the repechage and led in the final from the start and at all three 500m marks until they were overrun by New Zealand by 2.7secs. The Australian eight took the silver medal and qualified for Tokyo 2020.