The British rower Lola Anderson choked back tears as she told of her pride in fulfilling her late father’s faith in her talent on a wonderful Wednesday in Paris when Team GB chalked up five more Olympic medals – including two gold.
Great Britain was propelled into fifth position in the medal table, behind China, Japan, France and Australia, but ahead of South Korea and the USA, by the gold medal-winning feats of Anderson, Hannah Scott, Lauren Henry and Georgie Brayshaw in the women’s quadruple sculls crew and Alex Yee in the men’s triathlon.
There was also a silver in the men’s BMX freestyle and bronze medals in the women’s synchronised diving and triathlon as well as dazzling performances from Joe Fraser and Jake Jarman in the men’s all-around final of the artistic gymnastics.
The British gymnasts missed out on medals but kept in touching distance throughout with the eventual winner, Shinnosuke Oka from Japan, and the Chinese silver and bronze medallists, Zhang Boheng and Xiao Ruoteng.
Anderson’s gold came courtesy of a dramatic last-stroke photo-finish victory for the women’s sculls crew over the Netherlands. The win was seen as a watershed moment for British rowing after a difficult Games in Tokyo, where the rowers had failed to win a single gold medal for the first time since 1980.
As Anderson celebrated in the Vaires-Sur-Marne Nautical Stadium with her crewmates, she said the medal would join a scrap of paper given to her by her father shortly before his death as among her most treasured possessions.
Anderson had been inspired as a 14-year-old watching the London 2012 Games by Helen Glover and Heather Stanning’s rowing triumph in the women’s pair to make a short entry in her diary.
“My name is Lola Anderson and I think it would be my biggest dream in life to go to the Olympics in rowing and if possible win a gold for GB,” she wrote.
Anderson later threw the diary entry in the bin but her father, Don, who had rowed at university, returned it to her two months before his death from cancer in 2019.
“I threw that away because I didn’t believe,” the 26-year-old said on Wednesday. “I mean I was 14 at the time, so why would you believe that? My dad saw it before I did. He saw the potential I had, but my potential wouldn’t have been unlocked without the girls that crossed the line with me today. I’m grateful for everyone who has got me here and he would be very proud if he was here.”
The last-gasp victory by the women’s rowing team was squarely matched for drama by the heroics of Yee, who had appeared to have run out of steam in the last kilometre of the run in the triathlon until he found an extra gear to pass New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde and take gold. The two men collapsed to the ground together at the finish line and hugged.
Asked about the spur for his sudden resurgence in the dying stretch of the race, Yee said: “I don’t even know. I was in quite a bad place, to be fair. I was going through a really bad patch. For me, I rode that wave and just said one more try and let’s see if I can do it. I didn’t give up.
“Almost two laps in I thought silver was on the cards. I owed it to myself to give myself one last chance and with about 2k to go I thought I’d give it everything I had. I’m just so proud I was able to do that for my family, for everyone who has worked hard, for my girlfriend Liv. There’s so many more people than just me that have worked towards this. I am the lucky one who gets to do it.
“I was just saying: ‘Anything can happen.’ I’m still just that normal guy who works hard at my sport and loves what I’m doing. For me, it’s amazing that I can be in this position and I just believed it.”
Earlier on Wednesday morning, Beth Potter claimed a bronze medal as large crowds on the banks of the Seine cheered on the home athlete Cassandre Beaugrand to gold in the women’s triathlon. Swiss athlete Julie Derron took silver.
“I am just so happy,” said Potter, who switched to triathlon after coming 34th for Team GB over 10,000m in Rio in 2016. “I was going for the gold but Cassandre and Julie were just too good. I have come a long way in eight years.”
At the cycling venue at La Concorde, Kieran Reilly thought he had done enough to top the podium at the men’s BMX freestyle final but narrowly lost out to José Torres Gil, who secured Argentina’s first medal of the Games.
Reilly said of his silver medal: “I felt proud of whatever was going to come up on that board. Whatever score I got, I was going to be happy with.
“I thought it might have been enough for gold, it wasn’t. But I’m just as happy knowing that I went out there and I’ll watch it back tomorrow and I know I’ll be proud of everything I did and all the work that went into it.”
In a dramatic final in the synchronised 10m platform at the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis, a bronze for Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and her diving partner Lois Toulson came with a dramatic last dive that was enough to lift them into the podium places after a disappointing score for their third dive earlier in the competition.
It added to that by their teammates, Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen, whose bronze on the opening day in the synchronised 3m springboard was the first diving medal for British women since 1960.
Spendolini-Sirieix, whose’s father Fred Sirieix from TV programme First Dates was poolside, said: “It was so tense for us. First off, we didn’t look at the scoreboard so we did not know how close it was. Our back twist is our strongest dive and we just wanted to be strong whatever happens.
“I was disappointed more than worried after the third dive because I knew we could bring it back. I gave it my all and let it all out. Just having family [here] and doing it alongside Lois is so much sweeter. I can’t wait to celebrate with them.”
Team GB now have 17 medals, including six gold, six silver and five bronze. UK Sport said the day had seen a milestone passed with a total of 300 women having won a first medal at a summer Games since National Lottery funding revitalised Britain’s Olympic team after 1997.
