The front page of today’s Age carries the story of how the two captains of Australia’s men’s and women’s rowing teams, David Crawshay and Sarah Tait, shared a common great-grandmother. An interesting story no doubt, but there’s another story here, stunning yet virtually unknown, about the success of Crawshay’s rowing club, Melbourne’s Mercantile Boat Club.

One of Australia’s oldest rowing clubs, Mercantile has been a veritable gold medal factory over the past two decades. In fact, Mercantile has been the most fertile breeding ground of Australian Olympians and gold medalists than any other club in the country in recent years, however, possibly due to rowing’s low profile (outside the Olympics, rowing would be interested in the sport) few have heard of the Yarra river club.

Most famously, Mercantile is home to the majority of the “Oarsome Foursome” — Australia’s coxless four team which first won gold in Barcelona in 1992 and followed up with gold in Atlanta.

On an individual basis, Mike McKay attended five consecutive Olympic games, winning two golds, one silver and one bronze medal (McKay also won three world championship gold).

James Tomkins has an even more remarkable record and may challenge Dawn Fraser, Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett for the title of Australia’s most successful modern-era Olympian. In Beijing, Tomkins will saddle up for his sixth consecutive games. Tomkins won gold with the Oarsome Foursome in 1992 and 1996 and followed up with gold in the coxless pairs in Athens (Tomkins won bronze in Sydney but probably would have won his fifth gold medal had his original partner, Drew Ginn, not injured his back shortly before the Games). Tomkins has also collected a staggering seven world championship gold medals, starting with gold in the eight in 1986 — twenty two years ago.

Another Mercantile rower, Drew Ginn, has collected two gold medals (injury cost him gold in Sydney) and has a chance of another in Beijing

Well before the Foursome, Mercantile were mainstays of the Australian rowing team. In the 1956 Melbourne Games, four members of the “men’s eight” who won bronze were from Mercantile. In 1968, one member of the silver winning “men’s eight” hailed from the club, while two Mercantile members of the “men’s eight” which won bronze in Los Angeles in 1984.

While our track and field athletes are above attending the opening ceremony but will be lucky to earn a couple of medals, our low-profile rowing team, led by one small club on Melbourne’s Yarra River, will again bring home a swag of golds from Beijing.