Team GB win historic gold medal in Women’s quadruple sculls
“People say rowing is boring. Rowing is not boring,” claimed Hannah Scott after she and her Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x) crew mates, Lauren Henry, Lola Anderson and Georgie Brayshaw became Olympic Champions in the most dramatic of styles at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in Paris
Photo credit: Steve McArthur / Row360
The Dutch crew had led from the start but a final sprint and photo finish saw Team GB cross the line by just 0.15 seconds to top the podium.
Speaking after winning Team GB’s first ever gold medal in the Women’s quad, Lauren said: “It was just amazing! I could feel that we were moving on the Dutch crew, so in bow one of my jobs is to call to the other girls, so I said, ‘We’re going now. We need to go now!’ because I could sense we were coming back. Georgie and Lola in the stern really drove that finish and Hannah and I were with them the whole way. We started charging back and I could feel that ‘we’ve got this’.
“We have 100% belief in the race and 100% belief in each other and we just trust our plan and each other so much. We knew that if we deliver our best then we could get an outcome like this, so it was heads in all the way. We’re used to close racing but that was really tight, I felt we’d won it but it wasn’t until I looked over and saw ‘GBR 1’ that I let myself actually believe it and that moment was just ecstatic. We always thought during the race that we had a chance, we’ve come back from quite a long way before, and if we believe it’s over then it already is over. The moment we lose that belief we’ve lost the race so no matter how far behind we are in the race we’ll always have belief until we cross that finish line.”
Lola said: “I think everyone always wants to win as convincingly as possible. To be honest, there’s never a strict plan we look to follow exactly. Racing is always going to be fluid and dynamic and that’s part of what makes everyone here in this event Olympians, and the Olympic standard is the fact they know how to move with the race. If you’re down at the start it’s not over, if you’re down at the 1k, 500m or the 250m it’s not over, you’ve always got a chance to claw your way back. That’s what we have as a crew, we have unrelenting full trust knowing that if we commit we can move, and that’s what we did.”
Photo credit: Steve McArthur / Row360
Hannah said: “About 10 strokes from the line we just said ‘we got this’, then we just came through. We really trust in ourselves. We did this at the World Championships as well so we like to give people a tight race. We’ve been training for three years for moments like that and we weren’t going to let it go. Tough strokes have been taken every day for that, so other people could see it as nerve wracking but we were all eyes in. Getting the medal from Princess Anne was amazing! She made a good speech for us at the Embassy earlier in the week where she said to the three girls that it’s their first Games and to just enjoy it. It shows the talent with them that it’s their first Olympiad and they can get a gold medal. Turning it around from Tokyo, this is a really great surprise as well. But Princess Anne just said to enjoy it.”
Georgie said: “I just had belief in what they were telling me behind me. They had belief and I just trust them so much. It’s just incredible. I have no words. It means so much but I didn’t think too much about that and I just got on with it and ended up here, it’s amazing!”
Lola concluded: “Winning the first GB Olympic gold medal in the quad is amazing. There have been so many women who have come before us and so many women who have fed into this and gave us the belief. Fran Houghton has been a big part of our process, there have been so many people who have gone into this, Andrew Randell our coach, all the coaches, support staff and our families. The four of us got the medal but there’s so many more that have got it too and we are so grateful to them!”
It wasn’t to be for the Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) of Tom Barras, Callum Dixon, Matt Haywood and Graeme Thomas, who missed the podium in a close, fourth place finish. Tom said: “We went out and gave it what we had. Fair play to the other crews, they were better than us today. However much the heartbreak is now as we sit here, we want to say thank you to all the people who helped us get this far to the biggest competition on earth. It means so much.”
Graeme said: “Obviously I’m absolutely gutted, but we gave it everything we had today. The last stroke counts and the Women’s quad went out and proved that. It’s amazing for British sculling and for the GB Rowing Team as a whole – we need those medals to come in and support our programme so a big congratulations to them.”
Emily Craig and Imogen Grant were once again convincing in the Lightweight Women’s double sculls (LW2x), winning their semi-final to progress to the A final. Watching the Women’s quad win, Emily said: “I had faith in them. We watched them do it last year at the World Championships. We train with those girls, I know they’re hard as nails and I’m glad they proved me right. From a personal point of view, I didn’t know how far I could push my body until Andrew (Randell, Head Coach) came along and wrote a programme and I sat there and said, “I’m sorry, you want me to do what?” and then we did. And it turns out the limit is further than I ever thought. I’m incredibly grateful to both him and Louise (Kingsley, Performance Director) for coming in and really changing things, and making things worthwhile to come back for this Olympiad because it’s been really special so far.”
Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George were second in the Men’s pair (M2-) semi final and are also through to the A final. In the Women’s pair (W2-), Chloe Brew and Rebecca Edwards will race in the B final after finishing the semi final in fifth place.
