Britain’s men win gold and women bronze in eights

Great Britain powered to a thrilling gold in the men’s eight, 20 minutes after the women’s crew won bronze on the final day of rowing at the Paris Olympics.

The men traded the lead with the Netherlands before surging ahead in the third quarter of the 2,000m race.

The Netherlands tried to fight back but the British boat rose to the challenge and won by 1.08 seconds in five minutes and 22.8 seconds.

Cox Harry Brightmore and Sholto Carnegie in the bow seat climbed to their feet and roared with delight as the team celebrated a magnificent victory.

The eight of Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Charlie Elwes, Tom Digby, James Rudkin and Tom Ford shared an emotional embrace when they finally came to shore.

“”One engine, one machine,” was how Rudkin described the team’s ethos before the Games, and he was proved right as the crew added the Olympic title to their back-to-back world and European triumphs.

The successes on the final day of the rowing competition mean Britain finish with a record haul for an overseas Games of eight medals, and their best tally since London 2012, where they won nine on home water.

It has been a remarkable turnaround after Britain only managed two rowing medals in Tokyo, neither of them gold, and finished 14th in the medal table.

Here in Paris they have secured three golds, two silvers and three bronzes, and finish second in the medal table behind the Dutch, who have won the same number but four golds.

Eight of the 10 British crews won medals and two, the women’s four and the men’s pair, fell agonisingly short of winning gold.

Tom Ford’s gold came just 20 minutes after his younger sister Emily won bronze in the women’s race.

Heidi Long, Rowan McKellar, Holly Dunford, Emily Ford, Lauren Irwin, Eve Stewart, Harriet Taylor and Annie Campbell-Orde, coxed by Henry Fieldman, battled all the way to the line to finish behind champions Romania and Tokyo winners Canada.

Fieldman, the first male to cox a female boat at an Olympics, now has two Olympic medals after steering the men’s eight to bronze in Tokyo.

The bronze is only Britain’s second medal in the women’s eights after their silver at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and comes after they failed to make the final in Tokyo.

Britain’s Rowan McKellar said she had to ask whether they had won a medal such was her focus on rowing all the way to the line in a tight finish.

“I turned around and I was like, ‘Did we get it? Did we get a medal?’. I didn’t realise how close it was to the finish,” she said.

“I looked to my right and I saw Australia really close to us. We were just heads in, the whole way, and we did what we could.”

Team-mate Long added: “It’s really special to get a medal in this race and this boat class, and the girls have done amazingly. It was a tough competition.”

Cox Fieldman wants the bronze to lead to the women’s eight becoming regular medallists at future global events.

“I hope that now that we’ve had two Olympic medals in the women’s eight that this could be the start of more women’s eights medals to come – stepping on to greater things,” he said.