Western Morning News (Saturday)
Bronze for Plymouth rower in men’s eight
PLYMOUTH’S Jacob Dawson has claimed an Olympic bronze medal in the men’s eight in Tokyo.
In the final race of the regatta, Britain’s eight secured just their second medal, bringing down the curtain on a disastrous showing – the worst in more than 40 years.
While it was a sizeable achievement for Dawson and his teammates, it comes against a backdrop of a relative civil war within British rowing.
Team-mate Oliver Wynne-Griffith added: “Overall we’re very proud of the performance. We’ve had a pretty up and down week, we had some honest conversations throughout the week about our processes and getting back to our best.
“We’ve got a medal, it’s not the colour we wanted but there have been a lot of fourth places on the team, a lot of near misses and it’s good to be on the right side of one.
“I’m really proud of the guys, really proud of the row. We did everything we could to put the best race we possibly could on the day out there.”
Their results in Tokyo have led to recriminations over funding and notably the role of legendary coach Jurgen Grobler, who stepped down after 28 years in 2020 and was accused of ‘destroying the souls’ of some of his rowers by Josh Bugajski, also part of the eight.
Asked whether Grobler’s absence in Tokyo was the reason for the poor return, Bugajski said: “I will admit (Jurgen) is a good coach to some people but there were people that he seemed to take a disliking to and what he did to them was destroy them, destroy their soul, destroy everything.
“I popped a bottle of champagne when Jurgen retired. I had three very dark years under him, I’d be coward not to say on behalf of the guys who are back home and didn’t make it onto the team and that got the darker side of Jurgen.
“Well done to them for putting up with what we put up with. We were made to jump through a lot of hoops that some people weren’t made to jump through.
“We suffered as a result, both mentally and physically.
“It’s the end of an era for British rowing but it’s the start of a much better era.”
That future should include Dawson, 27, and making his Olympic debut in Tokyo.
In a team featuring just one returning Olympian, Rio gold medallist Mohamed Sbihi, the eight battled all the way before narrowly missing out on silver to Germany.
But after some early struggles, there was relief from the eight at the way they were able to turn things around and come away with a medal.
Stream every unmissable moment of Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 live on discovery+, the Streaming Home of the Olympics.