Alan de Belin (15 April 1954 – 22 August 1986) was an Australian

rower Rowing, sometimes called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars are attached to the boat using oarlocks, while paddles are not connected to the boat. Rowing is di ...

. He was an Australian national champion and won a bronze medal at the

1977 World Rowing Championships The 1977 World Rowing Championships was the 6th World Rowing Championships. The championships were held from 19 to 28 August 1977 on the Bosbaan rowing lake in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Medal summary About 556 rowers from 28 countries competed ...

Club and state rowing

de Belin's senior rowing was initially from the

UTS Haberfield Rowing Club UTS Haberfield Rowing Club in Sydney was formed as Haberfield Rowing Club in 1925. It has occupied its current site on Port Jackson's, Iron Cove at Dobroyd Point since 1926. The club had a senior and lightweight Sydney premiership & national com ...

. State representation first came for de Belin in 1977 in the New South Wales lightweight four contesting the Penrith Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the

Australian Rowing Championships Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

. He rowed again the New South Wales lightweight four at the Interstate Regatta in 1978. Both crews placed second. In 1977 and 1978 in Haberfield colours, de Belin contested Australian championship titles at the

in the lightweight four and the lightweight eight.

International representative rowing

de Belin made his Australian representative debut at the

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

in the Australian men's lightweight eight. That eight won a bronze medal with de Belin in the six seat. de Belin at World Rowing
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Sporting family

de Belin's father

Fred de Belin Fred de Belin (15 October 1920 – 11 February 2006) was an Australian professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s and an RAAF Flying Officer who saw active service over Germany during WWII. An Australian international and New ...

had a Sydney first grade career with the

Balmain Tigers The Balmain Tigers (also known as the Sydney Tigers from 1995–96) are a rugby league club based in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Balmain. They were a founding member of the New South Wales Rugby League and one of the most successful in t ...

that was interrupted by four years of

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

active service in Europe with the

RAAF "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

as bomber. He toured with the

Kangaroos Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

of 1948–49 and played eight Tests for Australia from 1948–50. Alan's nephew Jack de Belin started his Australian professional rugby league career with the

St George Illawarra Dragons The St. George Illawarra Dragons is an Australian professional rugby league football club, representing both the Illawarra and St George regions of New South Wales. The club has competed in the National Rugby League since 1999 after a joint- ...

under-20s team in 2011. By 2018 Jack had played 150

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

first grade games and that year made state selection for New South Wales in the

State of Origin series The State of Origin series is an annual best-of-three rugby league series between two Australian state representative sides, the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons. Referred to as “Australian sport's greatest rivalry”, the ...

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:de Belin, Alan 1954 births Australian male rowers World Rowing Championships medalists for Australia 1986 deaths 20th-century Australian people Place of birth missing