CUBC’s Olympians at Paris 2024 – What a week of racing!
Cambridge University Boat Club is incredibly proud of its eight alumni competing at Paris 2024. Congratulations to the athletes and their teams and families on a brilliant set of results!
Forever Champions: Imogen Grant and partner Emily Craig secure the last ever gold medal in the Lightweight Women’s double sculls
Imogen Grant (Trinity) and her partner Emily Craig executed a race that was perhaps as close to perfection as you can get in rowing to win gold for Team GB in the final ever Lightweight Women’s double sculls to be contested at the Olympics.
Off the start, the high-rating Romanians shot into a brief early lead, with New Zealand also showing strongly. But soon Grant and Craig’s calm synchronicity on beautifully flat water brought their bows in front. By 500m in, they had established a lead of 0.12 seconds over Romania, and at half way had extended this to nearly a second and were half a length up. After that they continued to pull away and crossed the line to claim victory nearly a length ahead.
The race was the last hurrah for lightweight rowing at the Olympics, meaning Emily and Imogen will be the last Olympic Champions in their boat class. “This was the only result left for us to achieve and we did it,” Imogen said. “I’m feeling all the emotions; joy, disbelief, relief, tiredness, joy again, so much happiness and that feeling of a job well done.”
The expectations on the crew coming into these Games could hardly have been greater. Since missing out on gold in Tokyo 2020 by just 0.5 seconds, and on bronze by a tiny 0.01 seconds, they have won two World and European titles, remaining unbeaten throughout the Paris cycle.
Reflecting on this, Imogen explained: “The loss in Tokyo was part of our story and this Olympics is the grand finale I think. Not every Olympian gets it right on the first try and it wasn’t like we did anything wrong in Tokyo, but we’ve put so much work into this and we are such different and better people this time around that there was a certain inevitability to the racing today, we knew we could do it.”
Emily added: “That was probably the quickest race of our lives and it kind of just happened in a flash. There’s so much muscle memory, the race plan over the past few years has kind of become gospel and speaks to how much we believe in it and how process driven we are that we came out and we lived that process until the end and got the result we wanted.
“There has been pressure but also confidence. Today we knew we didn’t have to go out and pull something new out of thin air, we just had to race the race plan that we have and that’s what saw us over the line first. It’s a bit of a blur to be honest.”
Credit: British Rowing
Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George take silver in the Men’s Pairs
Ollie and Tom (both Peterhouse) led the race throughout until Croatia’s Sinkovic brothers, 2020 and 2016 Olympic Champions, overhauled the British boat with a few strokes to go after a final sprint.
Tom said: “We had the perfect race from the start, pretty much to finish. We just didn’t have the perfect last three strokes – we were done, we were clinging on and we’d given it everything we had. To be that close is really special. The Olympics is a pressure cooker and it’s just the two of us. To be able to put out our best race when it really mattered, we were seriously brave with it especially after not having the perfect semi final. We said what we wanted to do, what we wanted to change and we went out and did that. It hurts a lot not to get the win, but we have a silver medal. We’re incredibly proud and happy with what we’ve achieved together. And doing it all with your best mate is pretty special. I know with a bit of hindsight we’ll be proud of what we achieved.”
Ollie said: “Today I’m really proud that we put that performance out there. We definitely took a risk in the first half, we said we wanted to grab it by the scruff of the neck, and unfortunately came up three strokes short. We wanted to race it like that, race for the gold medal and it’s an Olympic sport. It comes down to margins of seconds. The Croatians – fair play to them.”
Ollie added: “I have really enjoyed the project and the last two weeks being here. It’s a shame it’s not a fairy tale ending but I wouldn’t change a bit from the last three years. I’m sure in the next few weeks we’ll look back with an immense amount of pride in what we’ve done.”
Credit: British Rowing
Freddie Davidson and his crew clench bronze in the Men’s Four (M4-)
In an exciting race, Team GB’s Freddie Davidson (Emmanuel) along with crew mates Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, and Matt Aldridge took bronze in the Men’s Four. Racing in a stacked field, the four moved up from sixth place through the 500m to finish behind the USA boat in gold, with silver going to the New Zealanders.
Freddie said: “It’s been a difficult road to get here but I’m immensely proud of the race we put together today. We kept our heads in the boat whilst we were fighting through the back of the field and we’ve got a medal around our necks to show for it. Last year we had a smooth run of things and this year we’ve had more challenges. It’s just testament to how quick those guys are. The Kiwis and the USA were absolutely unreal and we’ve got to take our hats off to them, shake their hands and say well done.
David said: “I sensed we were dead last out of the blocks and we might have been. It doesn’t matter where you are at the start, it depends where you are at the end. We watched the Women’s quad yesterday – that was a good race to have in the back of our minds as a confidence builder. It was inspiring to see, and our coach Christian (men’s coach Christian Felkel) told us to focus on that.”
Oli said: “This has been a long time coming and it hasn’t been a smooth ride for me – a couple of years ago I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I was a reserve in Tokyo, the following year I got Covid and was replaced for the rest of the season, so two years out from the Olympics it wasn’t looking good for me. The rest is history. We went unbeaten last season, World Champions, and I’m so proud and so pleased to have been part of this crew. We’ve been through thick and thin together, I’d say. It’s really what teamwork is made of, and friendship. It’s hard to put it into words, but I’m immensely proud. I’ll keep an open mind about what’s next but I’m really proud of what we’ve done. It’s been epic to be with these guys.”
Matt said: “We got to the point a couple of weeks out where I was like, you know what, we’re not going into this as favourites anymore and to me that took a huge amount of pressure off. And I think that makes this even sweeter. Of course you dream of winning, but I’m incredibly proud of the performance we put out. This has made the last three and a bit years completely worthwhile.”
Credit: British Rowing
Henry Fieldman coxes the Team GB Women’s Eight to bronze, Olivia Coffey’s Team USA finishes 5th
The Team GB Women’s eight won a brave and brilliant bronze, coxed by Henry Fieldman (Homerton), which is only the second ever GB medal in this event. Rowing with the strong rhythm, they held third place behind Romania and Canada through each timing point, despite being pressed very hard by Liv Coffey (Homerton)’s Team USA during the first 1500m, and then by the fast-finishing Australians.
Heidi Long said: “I can’t remember any of the race. I was zoned in from the first stroke, just focusing on Henry, our cox, to try to do exactly what he said on every stroke, one stroke at a time.
Team USA finished just two seconds off a podium place with a time of 6:01.73, just 0.24 seconds off their fastest Olympic time in history.
Credit: British Rowing
South Africa’s Paige Badenhorst takes 2nd in the Women’s Single Scull C Final, 14th overall
After qualifying for Paris 2024 in dramatic fashion, Paige (Magdalene) rowed a clinical race in her C/D Semi-final, emerging victorious. She then took second in the C Final with a time of 7:27.76 just behind Jovana Arsić of Serbia to finish 14th overall.
Competing in her first Olympics, Paige told GSPORT after her first race, “I was nervous, definitely nervous. But I do feel more confident in myself, just having done one now. Some of the doubts about yourself, you can cross off the list and just keep going up from there.
I definitely rely on my base work. We do a lot of base work and mileage at high altitude and things like that so those are my advantages. I have a lot of fitness and endurance under my belt. So I definitely rely on that. I know I can work hard and I know hard for long.”
Dara Alizadeh takes 4th in the Men’s Single Scull E Final, 28th overall
In his second Olympics representing Bermuda, Dara (Hughes Hall) took the win the E/F Semi-Finals before ultimately finishing 4th in the E Final.
Of his semi-final race Dara told Bernews, “Knowing who was in the race, and seeing how they’ve done this week, and knowing their race tactics, I had a pretty firm grasp on how the race would unfold. I was able to get out well and was in control of the race pretty quickly. I said, ‘OK, the goal here is to deliver a strong race. By halfway, I could respond to what everyone else was doing.’”
Of the E Final, Dara said he left every ounce of energy out on the water in his final display in Paris. “I started well and got to the position I wanted, the rhythm I wanted. I tried to learn the lessons from the previous races. Credit to those guys – they were a little better today. I executed the race plan. I’m really happy with it.”
Credit: Bernews