Final flourish sees GB rowers top of the pile
TEAM GB finished top of the Olympic rowing medal table, having added another gold and silver after the women’s eight recovered from last place to claim their first podium.
A quickfire British medal haul at the Lagoa – the second in consecutive days – saw the women put in the race of their lives to clinch second place by a narrow margin, shortly before their male counterparts dominated in the water.
After the final morning of the rowing regatta, men’s cox Phelan Hill, who took a sabbatical from his job as a senior policy adviser at HM Treasury to concentrate on Rio, described the rowers as “gladiators”.
The first women’s medal in the eight discipline marks a third silver for Frances Houghton, the longest-serving member of the British rowing team, having made her junior debut in 1995. The 35-year-old said: “This fifth Olympics has been really great. We’ve really tried to make sure we’ve had a good time. Even before the race we sat around and we were laughing and joking together.
“Sport can be so much pressure but at the same time, sport is supposed to be fun and a great experience.” Houghton, Katie Greves, Melanie Wilson, Polly Swann, Jessica Eddie, Olivia Carnegie-Brown, Karen Bennett, Zoe Lee and cox Zoe de Toledo crossed the line in 6min 3.98secs – just 0.12 seconds ahead of the bronze medallists.
Scott Durant, Tom Ransley, Andrew T Hodge, Matt Gotrel, Pete Reed, Paul Bennett, Matt Langridge, William Satch and cox Hill followed up the women’s silver by topping the podium in the final race at the Lagoa.
After the race, Hill told the BBC: “These guys were magnificent today. Absolute gladiators.”
Hodge said of the race: “That was the angriest, the fiercest, ruthless, absolutely everything in that. It was very, very aggressive.
He added: “I mean, that was fist fight as it comes. That was really good.”