Gold and bronze help GB rowers claim record haul

Great Britain powered to a thrilling gold in the men’s eight and bronze in the women’s race, as the rowing team surpassed their previous best medal haul for an overseas 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 after winning Britain’s eighth medal in France.

The crew of Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Charlie Elwes, Tom Digby, James Rudkin and Tom Ford – plus their motivator-in-chief Brightmore – are now European, world and Olympic champions.

But such was the effort required that Bolding and Gibbs needed medical attention before the medal ceremony.

“How can you put into words something that you’ve always dreamed of? It’s pretty epic,” said Dawson after receiving his medal.

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.

“I saw about the last five strokes of Tom’s race, the most important, said Emily.

“I’m really proud Tom’s achieved gold, but also super-proud of what we’ve done to get on the podium as we’ve overcome so much in the past few months with injuries and other things.”

Fieldman, who steered the men’s eight to bronze in Tokyo, made history by becoming the first person to win an Olympic medal in both men’s and women’s events.

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

However, the men have now won medals in the eights at five consecutive Games, including gold in Rio in 2016.

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

It has been a remarkable turnaround for Britain after the team 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 finished 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.

Britain’s preparations for the Tokyo Games suffered the double setback of Covid restrictions disrupting training camps and the twin departures of Jurgen Grobler, the legendary coach behind Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matt Pinsent’s successes, and women’s head coach Paul Thompson.

After Tokyo, new performance director Louise Kingsley, men’s head coach Paul Stannard and women’s head coach Andrew Randell have overhauled the team.

“I think it was about putting the past behind us and very much looking forward,” said Dawson, about the team’s revival in France.

“Obviously we’ve had a change in leadership and change of direction on where we want to go.”

“One engine, one machine,” was how Rudkin described the team’s ethos before the Games, and he was proved right as the crew motored to victory.

Elwes – one of four survivors from the bronze medal-winning crew in Tokyo – said a poor stroke at the start of the race spurred them on.

“99.9% of that was perfect,” he said. “We did have a bit of a duff stroke on stroke one and that really scared us.

“But it almost fires you up another 20% so we shot out of the start and never looked back.”

Brightmore shouted out the orders from his cox’s seat to ensure Britain held the Dutch at bay.

“These guys are masochists,” he said. “They like to be told – even when they’re in the depths of pain – that they can put out more. It’s my job to crack the whip.

“Even though it was nip and tuck and we were ahead at certain points, we needed to be totally ruthless.”

Dawson, who took time away from the sport in 2022 because of a life-threatening blood clot on the lung caused by Covid complications, admitted to mixed emotions.

“It’s sadness that this project is now at an end,” he said. “Today is probably the last day that any of us will row in the same crew – but there’s also complete elation.”

Britain’s 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,” she said.

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

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.

Britain finished the Paris Olympics with eight medals to beat their previous best at an overseas Games.

Here are the medal winners:

Gold

Silver

Bronze