Australian national champion rower who won a gold medal for Australia in the coxless four event at the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics on 28 July 2021. Nicknamed Rosie, she is a dual citizen of Australia and the United States, and has represented both countries at World Rowing Championships, twice winning medals for Australia. Prior to her Olympic gold success, she won the Remenham Challenge Cup at the 2018 Henley Royal Regatta in the Australian women’s eight.
Both of Popa’s parents were Australian Olympic medallists in rowing. Her father Ion Popa had rowed for Romania before defecting to Australia in 1978. He was a 1986 world champion, a dual Olympian and won bronze in the Australian men’s eight at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Rosemary’s mother Susan Chapman won Australia’s first Olympic medal in women’s rowing – a bronze in the coxed four at Los Angeles.
Popa won a scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley and rowed for that University at the NCAA Championships in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 graduating with a degree in Sociology in 2014. She won the pair at the 2012 US U23 World Championships trials.
Following her return to Australia, Popa was selected in the 2018 Victorian state women’s senior eight to contest the Queen’s Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships. She crewed that Victorian eight in its 2018 Queen’s Cup victory. That year she also crewed a composite Australian selection eight who won the open women’s coxed eight title at the Australian Rowing Championships and in a composite Australian selection four she won the 2018 open women’s coxless four national title.
By the time of national team selections in 2021 for the delayed Tokyo Olympics, Popa had forced her way back into the Australian coxless four, which had qualified for the Olympics on 2019 performances. Popa was selected to race that boat with Annabelle McIntyre and the experienced Olympians Lucy Stephan and Jessica Morrison. This combination had won the 2021 Australian national title in the women’s coxless four.
Link to Wikipedia biography