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31
Jul
GOLD! Harrogate rower triumphs at Olympic Games in Paris
Harrogate Olympic rower Georgie Brayshaw struck gold in Paris today, as Team GB triumphed in the women’s quadruple sculls final.
Georgie and her teammates – Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott and Lola Anderson – trailed in second place for most of the race, before upping the pace in the last 50 metres and pipping a strong Dutch crew right on the line for a photo finish, winning by just 0.15 of a second.
Germany came third, more than three seconds later.
Georgie was presented with her gold medal by HRH the Princess Royal.
Speaking to the BBC after the race, Georgie said:
It’s just incredible. For me, winning the race was due to the plan that we had set. If we did that plan well, I knew it would get us over the line in first place.
No matter what the result, I was so proud, but to come in first place is just incredible.
She said that since she was in the stroke seat, facing away from the direction of travel, she couldn't see anything, but she could hear her teammate, Lola Anderson, behind her. Still apparently struggling to digest the win, she said:
I could hear things like ‘We’re moving, we’re moving’, and I just had to believe in all these girls. We’ve just worked on it these past three years. I just can’t believe it – I actually don’t know what to say.
Great Britain had come seventh in this event at Tokyo 2023, but this was a different crew, which had already met with success over the last couple of years. They won Gold at the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Serbia and also in the 2024 European Rowing Championships in Hungary in April.
The women’s quadruple sculls, which was held at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, 20km east of Paris, is a 2000m race between boats of four rowers, each with two oars, or ‘sculls’.
Georgie, a former pupil of St John Fisher Catholic High School in Harrogate, has had quite a journey to achieve a gold medal at the Olympic Games. She was paralysed down one side when she was 15 after a fall from a horse, but retrained her body before taking up rowing at university.
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