Standing at 188 cm and 95 kg, Pearce entered the amateur national sculling championships in 1927, which he won and retained in 1928 and 1929.
Pearce momentarily stopped rowing to let the ducks pass; he still won with the fastest time of all 8 competitors in that round.
[2] In the semifinals, Pearce was pressed by David Collett of Great Britain, winning by three-quarters of a length (roughly 1.5 seconds).
In the finals he became the first Australian to win gold in the single sculls by defeating Kenneth Myers of the United States by 9.8 seconds.
Pearce was unemployed during the Great Depression, only entering the 1930 British Empire Games in Hamilton, Ontario, through the charity of friends.
He won the single sculls at the Empire Games and attracted the attention of whisky magnate Lord Dewar, who offered Pearce a job in Hamilton as a salesman.
Having taken an early lead Pearce was content to scull a couple of lengths in front until halfway along the enclosures (in the last 500m of the course) where Brocklebank pushed hard and came back level.
However, Dickie Burnell, who watched the race as a schoolboy from the Stewards' box on the finish line, wrote that Pearce looked anything but comfortable in the last few strokes.
In 1938, he defeated Evans Paddon of Australia in a three-mile race during the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto where his world sculling title was at stake.
In 1939, Pearce became a professional wrestler, performing in preliminary matches for Toronto promoter Frank Tunney until the spring of 1940.
[1] During World War II, Pearce joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, and was made a lieutenant in charge of training new soldiers.
He also did public relations work for the Royal Canadian Navy and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander by his retirement in 1956.