U23 athletes win four more golds at World Rowing Championships in Canada 

It’s a ‘clean sweep’ with the women’s pair, four and eight all bringing home gold!

Great Britain’s U23 athletes added four more gold medals to the women’s pair gold and women’s quad bronze won on the first finals day, to finish top of the medal table for the age group in Olympic boat classes, at the 2024 World Rowing Senior, Under 23 and Under 19 Championships in St. Catharines, Canada.

Peter Sheppard, GB Rowing Team Head Coach for the Olympic Pathway said: “The four gold medals have rounded off an excellent U23 championships for GB, topping the medal table with five gold and one bronze medal in Olympic Class boats. We have seen many firsts for GB at these championships including crowning 28 gold medallists and 32 medallists in total from 42 athletes. We have won both Men’s and Women’s eights at the same U23 Championships and won all 3 Olympic Class Women’s sweep events for the first time. We have also seen four coaches (Ben Jackson, Chris Bartley, Will Fletcher and Chris Tebb) coaching their first Olympic Class medal winning crews.”

There were two consecutive gold medals for Great Britain when they won both the women’s and men’s fours.

An impressive race for the Women’s four (BW4-) of Arianna Forde, Grace Richards, Philippa Emery and Jess Martin, coached by Will Fletcher, allowed them to set a new U23 World Championship Best Time. Ariana said: “It was amazing! It was so good! I didn’t really know where we were until we crossed the line and I was like ‘oh we actually won’. It was brilliant!”

The Men’s four (BM4-) of Josh Brangan, Fergus Woolnough, Harry Geffen and Jake Wincomb coached by Kieran Clark also won gold, defending their title in this boat class. Fergus said: “It was good. We got out to an early lead. We were expecting it to be a little bit closer off the start. We just kept on moving out and then it got a bit choppy but it was a pretty good row, and we managed to hold on to it.”

Harry added: “I think we were just super loose. Tough conditions, very fast. We just trusted our game plan, trusted each other and it’s a great result. So much fun!”

Great Britain’s women completed the clean sweep of wins in the Olympic sweep events when the Women’s eight (BW8+) of Harriet Drake-Lee, Julia Hunt-Davis, Alice Baker, Amber Harwood, Abigail Dawson, Rhianna Sumpter, Ellie-Kate Hutchinson, Olivia Hill and cox, Hermione Hill, coached by Peter Sheppard, led from the start and finished nearly two seconds clear of the defending champions, the USA.

Julia said: “It was really good. Honestly, I can’t even comprehend what just happened. I was replaying in my mind what would happen if we won. I’m just in shock, it doesn’t feel real!”

Ellie-Kate added: “It has been a hard time to get here but the whole race was just belief and we just all really believed we could do it. It was so relaxed. We’re all very happy!”

It was a fourth gold of the day for Great Britain in the last of the U23 finals when their Men’s eight (BM8+) of Toby Lassen, Zac Day, Cameron Beyki, Gus John, Gabriel Obholzer, Tyler Horler, Luca Ferraro, Louis Nares and cox, Tom Bryce, coached by Chris Tebb, led from the start.

The USA kept them under pressure throughout – sitting just 0.37 seconds behind at both the 500m and 1,000m timing markers, but in the second half, GB were able to move further away and crossed the line first to defend their title.

Toby said: “It was just incredible. It was different from the prelim. We had a different tactic and I think we executed it perfectly, exactly how we wanted to do it and ultimately we came away with the win – much more than we wanted!”

Tom said: “In the prelim, the Americans did a great job. They caught us off guard off the start so we spent hours trying to improve the start, get out with them and then see what we had in the second half. The guys did an amazing job and huge thank you to our coach, Chris Tebb. He did a massive job with us. When he first picked us up, we were a bit of a mess and he got us to gold!”

The men’s quadruple sculls (BM4x) of Harry Ruinet, Josh Matthews, Elliott Donovan-Davies and Nat Gauden, coached by Tom Young finished in sixth place. Earlier in the week, the crew had qualified for the final with U19 reserve Ruben Taylor from The Windsor Boys’ School stepping up to race.

In the B finals, It was a fourth place finish (10th overall) for Stephen Hughes and Matt Long in the Men’s Double sculls (BM2x) and a second place finish (8th overall) for the Women’s double sculls (BW2x) of Poppy Baker and Rachel Bradley.