Gibbs and Glover among the medals as Great Britain's rowers show their form

Helen Glover, second right.

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Marlow's Rory Gibbs and Cookham's Helen Glover were once again among the medal winners as Great Britain showed their form at the World Rowing Championships in Belgrade this weekend, qualifying 13 boats for the Olympics in Paris 2024 in the process.

The women's four of Glover, Heidi Long, Rowan McKellar and Rebecca Shorten were a little disappointed to finish third on the medal rostrum, however, they're getting closer to their main Olympic rivals with every competition and every stroke and expect to be very much in the mix for the gold medal when the Games in Paris rolls around next summer.

Rowan said: “It’s not exactly what we were coming here for, and I feel like we’ve just missed the mark today. We’ve stepped on in the last six weeks, throughout the regatta and that shows how much we can step on in the next year. It’s made us hungry, and I think it will set us up for a really good year.”

Glover is aiming to become an Olympic champion once again at the age of 38, having become the first mother to row for Great Britain at an Olympics when she competed in Tokyo in 2021. She is already a double Olympic champion having won gold in the women's coxless pairs at London 2012 and Rio 2016 alongside Heather Stanning.

The bronze medal was one of nine earned by the British team at the championships, placing them second in the medal table and tied first for the number of golds.

One of the highlights of the championships was a gold for the men's eight which featured Marlow's Rory Gibbs.

Teaming up with Jacob Dawson, Morgan Bolding, Sholto Carnegie, Charlie Elwes, Tom Digby, James Rudkin, Tom Ford and cox Harry Brightmore, the team qualified their boat for Paris in some style, before jumping into the River Sava to celebrate.

Sholto said: “Olympic qualification is always going to be a little bit spicy. We just really believed in what Harry was saying and responded exactly to his calls and stuck together as a unit.”

罗里补充道:“在这样一场比赛,那种of competition, not only do you have to deliver your best race physically you have to execute it as best you can technically, which is a tall order. But we’ve done that, I think it’s a credit to the whole crew, to our friends and family. Everyone is a part of it. The job isn’t quite done, we’ve got next summer and the Paris Olympics, but for now we’ll take that win, celebrate tonight and build towards next season.”

Summarising the regatta, Louise Kingsley, GB Rowing Director of Performance, said: “It’s been a fabulous week. This last weekend particularly has just been stunning. My highlight was the Women’s quad, they were sensational, but there have been many brilliant performances. The first important step this week was to gain qualification spots. We have nine boats securely through to the Olympics and four boats going to the Paralympics next year. The next step is to allow some time to enjoy the medals and then go back and do lots of analysis and then get our heads down for the big one next year.”