Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Look how far he’s come!
RANSLEY RETURNS FROM RIO WITH GOLD
Rower Tom Ransley received a hero’s welcome on Tuesday as Teamgb returned to the UK in a gold-nosed plane named Victorious.
The 30-year-old claimed gold in the men’s eight in Rio four years after having to settle for bronze at London 2012.
However, the Lagoa regatta at the foot of the Corcovado mountain was a far cry from the Ashfordborn star’s days at King’s School, Canterbury, where he studied and rowed from 1999 to 2004.
Another former King’s student, Frances Houghton, who was at the school from 1993-98, claimed silver in the women’s eight in Rio, her fifth Olympics, to add to her Athens gold and bronze from Beijing.
Ransley reflected on the ‘awesome feeling’ of helping GB power to gold and revealed he is undecided about whether to pursue another medal at the Tokyo Games in 2020.
The 30-year-old was in the No.2 seat as Britain repeated their dominance of the heats, bursting off the line and opening up a commanding lead in the first 1,000m before holding rivals Germany and the Netherlands at bay in the second half of Saturday’s race.
Ransley said: “I am so happy but fairly overwhelmed. We delivered what we were capable of, when it counted. I am proud.
“It was an incredible race. I knew we were capable of delivering an extremely high standard performance.” Ransley claimed the supreme effort of fulfilling a lifelong dream had taken its toll, adding: “I was empty on the finish line. Completely drained. I couldn’t even celebrate or really take it in.”
Ransley admitted the question of whether he wanted to put himself another four year cycle ahead of Tokyo 2020 was ‘bouncing around my head’ but he added: “No decisions yet.”