After a gold-less Tokyo Olympics in what has usually been a cornerstone of Great Britain’s Olympics medal hopes, GB’s rowers have been resurgent in Paris, adding four medals to their country’s record-breaking total of 20 in the first six days.
The coveted gold was claimed in scarcely believable fashion on Wednesday, as Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson, and Georgie Brayshaw pipped The Netherlands in a photo finish to win gold in the women’s quadruple sculls.
Three more were added yesterday, two bronzes either side of a silver, the women’s double sculls and men’s four responsible for the bronze and Helen Glover’s women’s four for the silver.
Today, Great Britain are in three finals, although the first of which for the women’s pair of Chloe Brew and Rebecca Edwards is a ‘B’ final that doesn’t offer any medals, but just a chance for the crews to ascertain an official ranking below the six in the final.
The first potential medal, therefore, is in the men’s pair race, and GB’s Tom George and Oliver Wynne-Griffith will paddle from lane five having qualified third fastest in the semifinals, trailing Romania and Croatia who were 1.7 and 1.58 seconds quicker respectively. There is a 0.62 and 0.66 second cushion to the next fastest qualifiers, Switzerland and Ireland, though, so a medal is far from guaranteed, despite their title as favourites going into the event.
Following them for GB is the women’s lightweight (LWT) double sculls final, scheduled for 11.22 as GB’s Emily Craig and Imogen Grant set off in lane three having won their semifinal. They are, however, just the fourth fastest in the lineup, all three of Romania, Greece, and Ireland went faster in the second semi. This by no means suggests Craig and Grant can be written off, the two hold the world record in this race, and haven’t lost a race in this Olympic cycle.
Those are the finals team GB will appear in, but the morning is absolutely jam-packed with finals of varying magnitudes, 14 of them to be exact, with four medals on offer – the LWT women’s double sculls acting as the conclusion of the morning’s action. You can keep up to date with all of it on this live blog.