Helen Glover is targeting Olympic glory in her fourth games after being named in a revitalised Team GB squad for this summer’s showpiece in Paris.
There is realistic hope that Great Britain will consign their sub-standard showing at Tokyo 2020 to distant memory. A medal for Glover and company in the women’s four would put the team firmly on course for success and the 37-year-old, who won gold in the coxless pairs at London 2012 and Rio 2016, feels ready to push for a third.
“For us in the four, we definitely want to be on the podium,” Glover told the Guardian at the squad’s announcement in Kew Gardens. “I’d feel satisfied walking away with a medal around my neck, but equally we have been going well so I want to see what colour I can make that medal as well.”
The women’s four are European champions and won bronze at the world championships in Belgrade last year. It has felt like a reset after finishing fourth at a Covid-struck Olympics in Japan and Glover, who says they felt “instantly on the back foot” three years ago, senses a more familiar dash of expectation this time around.
“It feels much more like my London and Rio experience,” she said. “It feels a bit special, you feel the team are really excited to be on the precipice of something. In Tokyo it was more, kind of, anxious: not even knowing if we were going to end up racing in some cases. So it does feel very different and there’s a big sense of purpose around the team.”
Glover, who has three children, became the first mother to row for Great Britain when she competed in Tokyo. This year she is joined by another parent, Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne, who has a young son and was able to qualify for Paris 2024 with the help of donations to a personal fundraising page. The routine of preparing for elite competition has changed immeasurably for Glover but her application and wisdom remain priceless in a squad packed with Olympic newcomers.
“The way I run my training is very different, purely through being a mum,” she said. “I’ve got something much bigger and more important that I’m going home to, so I time training around my kids. So in a practical sense it’s very different, and my role in the boat is probably about having that bit of experience. Especially now, coming up to the games, I’ve been through it enough times to be able to give a bit of that to the team.”
Exactly half of the 42-strong squad will be Olympic debutants. They include Glover’s crewmates Esme Booth and Sam Redgrave, who make up a boat also containing the Tokyo contender Rebecca Shorten. “They’re just amazing rowers,” Glover said of Booth and Redgrave. “They’re incredible at what they do, and Rebecca has been to Tokyo so this will be her first games under this kind of experience. I really like the mix within our crew. There’s enough experience but also enough excitement. It’s really great working alongside them because I can feed off that energy as well.”
A silver and bronze were all Team GB had to show for their efforts in Tokyo but the sense of optimism extends beyond the women’s four. Great Britain comfortably topped the medal table at the European Championships in April, winning eight golds, and were second in last year’s global charts. The corner appears to have been turned and Louise Kingsley, the British Rowing director of performance, urged the squad to “go out there and write a unique chapter in the legacy of the GB rowing team”.
Tom Barras, one of those silver medal winners in the men’s quadruple sculls boat at the last Olympics, returns for another bite of the cherry in July. Other notable selections include Tom and Emily Ford, the brother and sister from Cheshire who also competed in Tokyo. The squad will be composed of 23 women and 19 men, meaning women form the majority for the second successive Olympics.
In Glover’s eyes, everything is in place for the final six weeks’ preparations. “I think the whole team is very much where we’d hope to be going into this last bit of work,” she said. “We still know there’s a lot to do. The rest of the world is going to be focused on the Olympics, trying to get faster and catch up as much as they can, but it’s a very good state to be in.”
