British Rowing history already has been made at the London 2012 Olympic Rowing Regatta but more may come on the final day.
On Day 5 the British crew of Helen Glover and Heather Stanning won the first final of the regatta, the Women’s Pair, and became the first ever Olympic champions to come from the GB Women’s Squad.
It took the 36 years, since women’s rowing was introduced at the Olympic Games, for Great Britain’s women to win gold. Two days later they had two. On Day 7, Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger lead from start to finish of the Women’s Double final to take the gold for TeamGB. Grainger has won three silver medals at previous Olympic Regattas. The gold, until now, had always escaped her.
The pressure is now on the GB Men’s Four to win their event and avoid making another type of history. GB Chief Coach, Jurgen Grobler, has coached GB Men’s Sweep crews to gold in every Olympics since the 1992 Games after he came to the UK in 1991. His four have tremendous opponents in the Australian four. These crews have met each other twice in finals this year at the World Cup rounds. In Lucerne it was GB who took the gold by just over a second. The margin was even tighter, but the result reversed, in Munich as Australia claimed the win. The crews met in the semifinals on day 6 of this Olympic Regatta but did not race to the line. Australia lead to the 1500m mark before GB pushed through. The Australian crew did not lift their rate into the finish, allowing GB to go 3 seconds faster than them in the last 500m. Both of these crews are here to win. Either will see silver as failure. On home water, defending Grobler’s record, the pressure is on the GB four to prevail.
