They join the men’s and women’s fours and the men’s and women’s quads who have also qualified directly for A finals.

The Women’s pair have also today progressed through to the A/B semi-final joining the Lightweight women’s double sculls, the Men’s pair and Women’s double sculls, who all qualified over the weekend. This means that all 10 Team GB crews have progressed positively through their heats.

Heidi Long, Rowan McKellar, Holly Dunford, Emily Ford, Lauren Irwin, Eve Stewart, Hattie Taylor, Annie Campbell-Orde, and cox, Henry Fieldman put in a confident performance to win their Women’s Eight (W8+) heat.

Hattie said: “It’s really good to get going. With the eights there is always a bit of a wait – initially, we were grateful to have a few more days than the rest of the team but by Saturday we wanted to get on with it and it’s great to have one race done.”

Heidi added: “It’s been really exciting watching the rest of our squad race. We are a really close team and we can get confidence from the other cews. Watching the quad, the four, the lightweight doubles earlier just walk away in the third 500m gave us confidence in our legs that we could do the same. So there are pros and cons to racing last but great to get our first race under our belts. We’re happy with our performance today.”

Sholto Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Charlie Elwes, Tom Digby, James Rudkin, Tom Ford and cox, Harry Brightmore were once again dominant, winning the Men’s eight (M8+) heat five seconds ahead of Australia.

“It was a good race”, Jacob said, adding: “We knew we had to execute a strong performance to get through to the final. It was about keeping to our processes – simple is better. There’s so much time between now and the final, so you could have a flat out race today and still be able to perform. It wouldn’t have changed anything for us – if we’d had to fight to the line we are fully prepared to do that. It just so happened that we executed our first 1,500m well enough that we were able to enjoy the last 500m a little more. The expectation for us is to be on the hunt and execute the best race that we can. There’s no more to it.”

Sholto said: “Stevie (Steve Trapmore, coach) always has a plan for us so we follow his lead. There is always expectation but ultimately we’ve got to keep the focus in the crew and do the simple things right. That’s what we’ve done all the way through this Olympiad and we’re going to keep going, searching for more, keep it as simple as possible.”

The Women’s pair (W2-) of Chloe Brew and Rebecca Edwards were third in their repechage and now progress to the A/B semi-final. Rebecca said: “You want to beat everybody but today our goal was to get to the A/B semi finals. Nobody is getting a medal today. That race was high pressure because either our Olympics would finish or we could keep going. We’d love to beat everyone but the most important thing is to take the steps.

“I think yesterday was interesting because the results from the heat didn’t follow the patterns at all. Everyone has gone away and worked hard and brought their best – and you want to compete against the best. For us we’ve learnt that small boat racing is tactical and physical – you can go as hard as you want but you have to be able to row in a way that is sustainable and play the race plan. It’s been a really big learning curve. No matter what the result is it’s always important to Chloe and I that we can show our best and that we’ve left no stone unturned. You can take great satisfaction in putting your best out there. That’s all you can do. The worst thing to be is ruled by the fear of going home and not showing what you can do. That pressure is there and I’m proud of how we handled it.”

Chloe concluded: “We know what to do if we’re in that situation again. I was confident that we could do it this morning. I didn’t think about a scenario where we wouldn’t be here and I think that came through in our race. We definitely improved on yesterday. “

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Day two also saw the Men’s pair and Lightweight Women’s double win their heats, progressing to semi finals.

The Women’s four (W4-) of Rebecca Shorten, Sam Redgrave, Esme Booth and Helen Glover were dominant in their heat, crossing the line three seconds ahead of New Zealand. Speaking after the race, about competing at her fourth Olympics and fresh from being Team GB flag bearer at the opening ceremony, Helen said: “If you were to transport yourself into the ‘me’ of any start line over the past decade, there’s not much difference. The way I think, the way I feel and act – it’s just me. Whether I’m at my first Olympic Games or I have three children, it just feels like a place where I’m ready to go out and do what I can.

“It’s got to be said that I’m getting pulled down the track by three amazing women, I wouldn’t be here without them. Sam, Esme and Rebecca are phenomenal in their own right, everyone brings something to the crew.

“Carrying the flag gave me an extra boost I didn’t expect. I almost walk that little bit taller and feel a little bit prouder. The Games are predictable, you know what’s going to happen, so that was something I didn’t predict. It’s one of the few things that could be thrown at you that’s not a negative, but a positive. ”

Esme added: “It’s an amazing thing to go out and race with Helen who has so much experience. In training and the lead in she’s helped us tick all the boxes we need to. We felt pretty prepared going out there, we know our race plan and what we want to do. So we felt confident.”

The Men’s four (M4-) was a tight race with Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Freddie Davidson finishing in second, behind New Zealand, to take the automatic qualification spot. David said: “We can take a lot of confidence from that heat. Obviously there’s a quick crew out there in the kiwis, and the rest of the world to be honest. But we were happy with it because we feel we’re building through the season step by step. We have work to do and three days to do it, but it’s a positive step and we’re into the final, which is the main thing. Bring on the final on Thursday.”

Imogen Grant described her Lightweight Women’s double sculls (LW2x) heat performance with Emily Craig, as “Calm, controlled and crossed the line first!” The win saw them progress to the semi final on Wednesday. Imogen added: “Our coach Darren (Whiter) said to us this morning ‘Go out and enjoy it,’ and whenever he says that we turn around and go, ‘Well, we’re going to do a bloody good job first and enjoy it afterwards’. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed moving out on the other crews. We’ve had a really good six weeks. Lucerne was a good race for us and it’s exciting to think that we’ve only gotten better since then. We’ve had some really good pieces in training and depending on what conditions are thrown at us, I think we’re ready. We have a huge amount of confidence in ourselves. I can’t think of another crew in the event that has experienced as many different types of races as we have, whatever wind direction or other crews we have to race is always a race we can reference. We can take confidence from past performances.”

Emily said: “We are very process driven and that’s the main thing we focus on. We don’t want to think about what the other crews are doing. All we can do is go as fast as we can from A to B and hopefully that will be faster than the rest of the world.”

Also winning their heat and through to the semi final were Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George in the Men’s pair (M2-). Tom said: “I think we executed our plan pretty well. We knew people would jump out – it’s the Olympics after all, but we stayed calm. We can always be better and I think that’s important and actually a good thing, you don’t want to have the perfect race in the heat and think ‘where do we go from here’ and we earnt the right to relax a little bit in that last 500m and keep it long and loose and take it to the line.”

Ollie added: “We’re happy with our first race. I think if you’ve got to the line first in your heat at the Olympics Games there’s got to be a certain element of confidence. We could be sharper out of the blocks, we want to be dominant in every part of our race and we probably didn’t do that today so we can work on that. Little bits in the last 500m we didn’t have to do today, but it’s nice to have things to work on.”

The Women’s pair (W2-) of Chloe Brew and Rebecca Edwards missed out on the automatic qualification spots with a fourth place finish. They will race the repechage on Monday. Rebecca said: “We’ve shifted our race plan slightly. We just got it slightly off the beat in the second 500m but I’m already looking forward to tomorrow because I know we can perform well. I’m excited about it.” Chloe added: “It was a bit surreal. Paris has been amazing so far but I’m just excited to see what we can do in the repechage. We’ve had the best training camp ever and haven’t missed a session.”

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Director of Performance for the GB Rowing Team, Louise Kingsley, collected the overall World Rowing Cup Trophy in front of athletes, friends and families after racing and said: “The athletes have given us some excellent races – with some that I can only describe as edge-of-your seat stuff but all showing class and great technique to deliver these medal winning performances. Full credit and thanks to the coaches and support team too. We will now be focusing on our preparations for the World Championships and qualifying boats for the Paris 2024 games.”

The Women’s Eight (W8+) was one of the ‘races of the day’, with Natasha Morrice, Rebecca Edwards, Lauren Irwin, Karen Bennett, Esme Booth, Emily Ford, Hattie Taylor, Annie Campbell-Orde and cox, Henry Fieldman taking the gold medal thanks to a sprint finish in the final seconds. Becca said: “This means so much, I can’t even really believe it’s happened. I think a lot of us have had plenty of races and put in so much work. This has been a big turnaround in the team and means so much to every single one of us.”

Lauren added: “Henry was just calling ‘Go now, go now!’ and we trusted every word that he said. Inching back, inching back, trusting in the process that we would come through in the end. It’s a great feeling.” And Karen said: “It feels really good to be World Cup Winners, that was a surprise! We are just stoked that we came out and put that performance together!”

The Men’s four (M4-) final was a thrilling race with GBR2 Dan Graham, James Robson, Sam Bannister and Sam Nunn just missing out on a podium spot in the final strokes. The GBR1 crew of Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Freddie Davidson however, continued their winning streak with another commanding victory.

David said: “It was quite a tough race, the competition is very fierce in this event and it’s also pretty hot. We always find the heat challenging. Being out there was quite energy-sapping, but we enjoyed the challenge.” Matt added: “I think we just trusted our rhythm. We know we have a very strong base speed, and the kiwis and Australians do as well. We hold consistently through the middle, trust the legs, trust that it carries us across the line and hope what happens in the last 500m takes care of itself. We don’t really think about that, we just step on and hope for the best.”

Photo: Benedict Tufnell

“We’re all looking forward to the Worlds,” said Freddie, adding, “ We have a lot of training to do before then, training camps and hard work, so it goes back to square one for us. It’s the end of the World Cup season, we’re happy with the results and now it’s back to square one to find out if we can get some more speed before Worlds.”

A dominant row and clear water win gave Emily Craig and Imogen Grant their second 2023 World Rowing Cup gold in the Lightweight women’s double sculls (LW2x).  Imogen said: “It’s amazing. It’s the first time we’ve had the opportunity to wear the yellow as World Cup leaders and it felt pretty good to cross that line first. Over the world cup season we’ve raced most of the combinations, and it’s been good to see crews from Romania and New Zealand come back in. We had a great race with the US double too in the Varese World Cup so we feel like we’ve got a good sense of the field. But, no one ever sits on their laurels when they’re trying to win races so we’ll go back to 2 months of hard training and see if we can get every single thing that we can out of this double.”

It was a second 2023 World Cup gold for Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George in the Men’s pair (M2-) after a thrilling tussle with the Romanians which saw the GB pair cross the line 0.34 ahead. Ollie said: “I think we’ve been learning a lot throughout the week, certainly yesterday we raced very differently from how we did today. We were trying things out, so it’s nice to see them pay off. Romania are a top quality crew, we’re under no illusions and they’re doing about 85 races this weekend doubling up those two lads and they do strange things, crazy things at the line, so we didn’t immediately know we had won it when we crossed the line.”

Tom added: “It’s one of those weird races where now I’m thinking it’s one of the hardest ones I’ve done. At the time it was very internal, we had our race plan – Ollie was really calm, I was probably less calm but he kept me honest and focused which was great. I’m happy with it. It’s nice to win today but we’ll go back to the drawing board next week and see if we can get a couple more seconds because the field is very tight. Everyone is going to go away and get faster, so we’ll have to go away and get faster.”

It was another World Cup silver for Georgie Brayshaw, Lucy Glover, Hannah Scott and Lauren Henry in the Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x). The race saw China lose its unbeaten run to finish fourth. “China were unbeaten and three crews got ahead of them today so this leaves this event wide open for the worlds,“ said Lauren. Hannah added: “I’m really proud of the GB women’s sculling squad. We’ve had Lucy jump in this week and hats off to her and everyone, because we’re able to adapt and hold our position on the world cup series, I couldn’t be prouder. We haven’t slipped at all, we’ve been challenged but it’s great to see.”

Varese World Cup II bronze medallists, Callum Dixon, George Bourne, Matt Haywood and Tom Barras improved with a silver medal in the Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) to win the overall world cup. “It’s another step on our treadmill which keeps on rolling,” said Tom, adding, “Hopefully we are going to crank up the speed as we head to the world champs, so two training camps to come and hopefully then we’ll be fresh and qualify the boat for Paris 2024, which is the main aim of the year.”

Photo: Benedict Tufnell

The men’s eight (M8+) race was neck and neck throughout with Australia just getting the edge on the GB crew of Will Stewart, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Sholto Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Tom Digby, James Rudkin, Tom Ford and cox, Harry Brightmore. Picking up silver medals, James Rudkin said: “We wanted to get the win but fair play to the Aussies for putting together a really good race. They’re a very fast crew so no shame in getting beaten by them. They’re very strong. It’s a chance for us to learn from it and try to come back stronger.”

The Women’s four (W4-) of Heidi Long, Rowan McKellar, Helen Glover and Rebecca Shorten won bronze behind Romania and Australia. Heidi said: “It’s always good to get on the podium, but it’s not quite the race or result we would’ve liked. We’ve stuck to our processes and I think we have stepped on through this regatta. We’re ready for a big block of training and to see what’s to come in September.”

In the B finals, the Women’s pair (W2-) of Chloe Brew and Juliette Perry racing for just the fourth time as a combination finished in fifth place (11th overall) and Aidan Thompson and John Collins, racing at their second event, were sixth (12 overall) in the Men’s Double sculls (M2x).

Final Day (Day 3) Results from World Rowing Cup III 2023

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The British Empire Medal is awarded for ‘achievement or contribution of a very “hands-on” service to the community in a local geographical area, this could include sustained commitment in support of very local charitable and/or voluntary activity; or innovative work that has delivered real impact but that is relatively short in duration’.

Becca, from Aughnacloy in Northern Ireland has been a member of the GB Rowing Team since 2019 and was in the Women’s Eight (W8+) that won a silver medal at the 2022 European Championships in Munich. She also represented Team GB in the Women’s Eight at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and was in the Women’s Eight which won the Remenham Challenge Cup at Henley 2022. She learned to row at Queen’s University Belfast because she wanted to try something that would really challenge her.

In 2023, Becca has been selected as a travelling reserve at both the European Rowing Championships in Bled and World Rowing Cup II in Varese. She will be returning to competitive racing in the Women’s Pair with Chloe Brew at Henley Royal Regatta later this month.

“I feel incredibly honoured to have been awarded a BEM.” Becca said, adding, “It was a real surprise and something I never expected. I’d like to say thank you to the person who nominated me and to everyone who has supported me throughout my rowing career.”

Louise Kingsley, GB Rowing Team Director of Performance said: “Congratulations to Becca on the award of a British Empire Medal. Becca is an enthusiastic member of the women’s squad and brings energy and passion to everything she does. This season, she has approached her selection as a travelling reserve with such positivity, always on hand to support racing athletes with their competition and recovery and because of this has become well respected by her peers within the team. We are looking forward to seeing her back racing at Henley.”

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