Niki van Sprang

Join us in welcoming New Haven coach, Alexya Vega! Alexya started her rowing career in high school at the Sound School where she became team captain and began dabbling into coaching. She’s also enjoyed other sports like track and cross country, but rowing is a sport...

I started rowing at a high school after being a swimmer my whole life. I rowed at Melbourne Girls Grammar and the sport really opened up my eyes to how important teams are. By rowing with all my school friends & competing I started to learn so many important life...

In high school rowing seemed daunting and inaccessible. Only ever picked as a goalie in netball for my height, I had decided that team sports, and sport in general, wasn’t for me by age 13 or 14. When the opportunity came around to try for the rowing squad, I went...

Sport has always played an important part of my life, but It wasn’t love at first sight when I initially tried my hand at rowing at school. I was predominantly a competitive ballroom dancer, more concerned with getting blisters on my feet rather than my hands! After...

Meet the TopRow rowers. Cynthia Masters has much to celebrate this year 2021. After progressing with TopRow and joining our partners Richmond Rowing Club Cynthia is finally feeling comfortable with single sculling due to persistent, consistent and understanding...

Thais joined TopRow in 2019 because she wanted a flexible job that would fit in around her studying. Now that Thais has graduated from university she has more time and wanted to take the opportunity to get more involved in TopRow Putney. Thais Learnt to row in Brazil...

Meet the TopRow rowers. Today we have a testimonial from Kerrin, a graduate from our January Learn to Row group in Melbourne! Read below to learn about her experience coming out of Lockdown and trying rowing for the very first time. (On the photo, Kerrin sat far right...

In the series 'Rowing for All', this time we speak to Brock Sampson. This American came into contact with the Netherlands about ten years ago and eventually settled here for love. In Nijmegen he set up the Rowing Without Limits project. With this he wants to make...

Having learnt to row with a laid back university club in York (UK), I didn’t know what I was getting into when I later joined my local club in London with a 6 day a week training program. I was soon hooked. With the club spirit and vision of winning shiny pots, rowing...

My rowing experience began when I was 15. A few of my friends chose rowing as their school summer sport the previous year and suggested that I join them at their pre-season gym sessions. The next thing I knew I was rowing in the eights on the Yarra! It was a little...

If you've ever rowed with us in London, you've probably met (or at least emailed) Harriet. She joined our team in 2018 when our London Putney location first opened. It started as a summer coaching job after she graduated from university and before a winter working as...

Amidst the madness that is 2020, TopRow is celebrating the opening of our new site in Melbourne, Australia. Our first Australian rowers will hit the water beginning November 4th, 8 months after the originally scheduled March opening was postponed due to the COVID-19...

Like so many people in our sport, Will didn't start out as a rower. Rather, he played football (soccer) and rugby - "not especially well," as he tells it - in addition to running cross country. After his first year at the University of East London he came to the...

My name is Niki van Sprang and I am a (former) TopRow Amsterdam instructor and current Dutch National Team Member (Heavyweight men’s double). In this new rubric I catch up with former teammates from my time at the University of California Berkeley. Today we start with Morgan Hellen. When I first arrived in America Morgan often had to act and translator and English teacher as I was still struggling with the new language. What followed were for years in which we never raced a race without each other with as highlights a National Championship in 2016 and a Royal Henley regatta victory in 2015. Now I’m curious what he has been up to since.