Team GB through to two more rowing finals at the Olympic Rowing Regatta
Both the Women’s and Men’s fours went directly through to their A finals after a jam-packed morning of racing at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in Paris
GBR racing at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical St. - Flatwater, Paris, France on Sunday 28 July 2024. 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Photo credit: Steve McArthur / Row360
Day two also saw the Men’s pair and Lightweight Women’s double win their heats, progressing to semi finals.
The Women’s four (W4-) of Rebecca Shorten, Sam Redgrave, Esme Booth and Helen Glover were dominant in their heat, crossing the line three seconds ahead of New Zealand. Speaking after the race, about competing at her fourth Olympics and fresh from being Team GB flag bearer at the opening ceremony, Helen said: “If you were to transport yourself into the ‘me’ of any start line over the past decade, there’s not much difference. The way I think, the way I feel and act – it’s just me. Whether I’m at my first Olympic Games or I have three children, it just feels like a place where I’m ready to go out and do what I can.
“It’s got to be said that I’m getting pulled down the track by three amazing women, I wouldn’t be here without them. Sam, Esme and Rebecca are phenomenal in their own right, everyone brings something to the crew.
“Carrying the flag gave me an extra boost I didn’t expect. I almost walk that little bit taller and feel a little bit prouder. The Games are predictable, you know what’s going to happen, so that was something I didn’t predict. It’s one of the few things that could be thrown at you that’s not a negative, but a positive. ”
Esme added: “It’s an amazing thing to go out and race with Helen who has so much experience. In training and the lead in she’s helped us tick all the boxes we need to. We felt pretty prepared going out there, we know our race plan and what we want to do. So we felt confident.”
The Men’s four (M4-) was a tight race with Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Freddie Davidson finishing in second, behind New Zealand, to take the automatic qualification spot. David said: “We can take a lot of confidence from that heat. Obviously there’s a quick crew out there in the kiwis, and the rest of the world to be honest. But we were happy with it because we feel we’re building through the season step by step. We have work to do and three days to do it, but it’s a positive step and we’re into the final, which is the main thing. Bring on the final on Thursday.”
Imogen Grant described her Lightweight Women’s double sculls (LW2x) heat performance with Emily Craig, as “Calm, controlled and crossed the line first!” The win saw them progress to the semi final on Wednesday. Imogen added: “Our coach Darren (Whiter) said to us this morning ‘Go out and enjoy it,’ and whenever he says that we turn around and go, ‘Well, we’re going to do a bloody good job first and enjoy it afterwards’. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed moving out on the other crews. We’ve had a really good six weeks. Lucerne was a good race for us and it’s exciting to think that we’ve only gotten better since then. We’ve had some really good pieces in training and depending on what conditions are thrown at us, I think we’re ready. We have a huge amount of confidence in ourselves. I can’t think of another crew in the event that has experienced as many different types of races as we have, whatever wind direction or other crews we have to race is always a race we can reference. We can take confidence from past performances.”
Emily said: “We are very process driven and that’s the main thing we focus on. We don’t want to think about what the other crews are doing. All we can do is go as fast as we can from A to B and hopefully that will be faster than the rest of the world.”
Also winning their heat and through to the semi final were Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George in the Men’s pair (M2-). Tom said: “I think we executed our plan pretty well. We knew people would jump out – it’s the Olympics after all, but we stayed calm. We can always be better and I think that’s important and actually a good thing, you don’t want to have the perfect race in the heat and think ‘where do we go from here’ and we earnt the right to relax a little bit in that last 500m and keep it long and loose and take it to the line.”
Ollie added: “We’re happy with our first race. I think if you’ve got to the line first in your heat at the Olympics Games there’s got to be a certain element of confidence. We could be sharper out of the blocks, we want to be dominant in every part of our race and we probably didn’t do that today so we can work on that. Little bits in the last 500m we didn’t have to do today, but it’s nice to have things to work on.”
The Women’s pair (W2-) of Chloe Brew and Rebecca Edwards missed out on the automatic qualification spots with a fourth place finish. They will race the repechage on Monday. Rebecca said: “We’ve shifted our race plan slightly. We just got it slightly off the beat in the second 500m but I’m already looking forward to tomorrow because I know we can perform well. I’m excited about it.” Chloe added: “It was a bit surreal. Paris has been amazing so far but I’m just excited to see what we can do in the repechage. We’ve had the best training camp ever and haven’t missed a session.”
