Championships at Eton Dorney he'd lost his seat to James Chapman. McGowan stroked the Australia coxless four at those championships to a fifteenth place finish. It was his last representative regatta as an oarsman. Coaching career On his rowing retirement aged just 26, McGowan moved straight into coaching at the school level in Western Australia, including co-coaching PSA Rowing events. In 2007, prior to his departure for Europe, he and Gavin Russel co-coached the winning Trinity College crew in the 2007 WA schools Head of the River. McGowan joined the Dutch rowing team in 2007, becoming the youngest coach to win a world championship when he took the Dutch men's lightweight eight to a gold medal win at the 2007 World Rowing Championships. In 2008, he took over the Dutch heavyweight men's eight and at the final Olympic qualification regatta managed to qualify them for the Beijing 2008. They made the Olympic final and finished in fourth place. In 2013, McGowan moved to Sweden where he formed a recruitment and development program for elite athletes. The program was responsible for twelve world records on the concept2 rowing machine over a period of four years. While in Sweden, McGowan worked together with Chalmers University, co-writing papers relating to coach communication with athletes presenting at the 2015 icsport conference in Lisbon. In 2016 and 2017, McGowan lectured "creating a culture of excellence" at Innopolis University in Kazan, Russia. In 2017 McGowan returned to Australia to a position as Head Coach at the Swan River Rowing Club. In 2018, McGowan was appointed by Rowing Ireland as Head Coach of the heavyweight team. He took Aifric Keogh and Emily Hegarty to Ireland's first ever World Championship final appearance at the 2018 Worlds. He coached Sanita Pušpure to Ireland's first women's medal - World Championship gold in 2018 and 2019 as well as European Championship gold in 2019. He then coached the men's double scull of Philip Doyle and Ronan Byrne to a silver medal at the 2019 World Rowing Championships. The duo won Ireland's first heavyweight men's world championship medal in over 40 years. Accolades and career beyond rowing In 2000, McGowan received the West Australian Youth of the Year award, and was nominated for Young Australian of the Year. He was an athlete representative for Australia at the 2005 IOC sessions in Olympia. On 2 February 2021, McGowan was appointed as the Performance