Great Britain Rowers in Men’s Quadruple Sculls Win Silver Medal at The Olympics

As British Rowing recently announced, Great Britain’s men’s quad team won a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Harry Leask, Angus Groom, Tom Barras, and Jack Beaumont won the first rowing medal for Great Britain at the Sea Forest Waterway, after three fourth-place finishes in the finals at the same venue. The Netherlands won a gold medal in the men’s quadruple sculls, having the world’s best time.

The silver medal shines all the brighter when we consider all of the troubles that the men’s rowing team had to go through.

Beaumont experienced a training accident in 2015 in Portugal, which caused four fractured vertebrae in his back, two broken ribs, and a torn hip flexor muscle. After the accident, he thought he might not be able to walk ever again, let alone win a medal at the Olympics.

“I’m so happy,” Beaumont said. “We decided we were in lane one, we had an outside chance of a medal, so to take it to them. We did it. […] It was wild out there – the conditions were rough with a tailwind, but it is what we are used to back home.”

The biggest disappointment of the tournament for Great Britain was the downfall of the men’s coxless four, who got their navigation badly wrong and finished only fourth. This is the first time since 1996 that a British team failed to win the gold medal at the Olympics.

Ollie Cook, Matt Rossiter, Rory Gibbs, and Sholto Carnegie were considered the nation’s best hope of a gold medal, but things didn’t end well. They were second going into the final 500 meters of the 2,000m race, but they veered off the line very close to the Italian boat.

Cook had an emotional breakdown while being interviewed after the race. “I’m responsible for the steering. I screwed up,” said Cook and added: “I forgot the steering a little bit, and that cost us a medal. To the lads, I’m sorry I didn’t steer us the best line at the end.”

Rowing has always been a popular sport in the UK, and all major betting sites, including the new and upcoming ones, compete at creating attractive odds for all those interested in betting on rowing teams at Olympics. The British rowing teams missed many opportunities in these Olympics, but adventurous bettors could have made a killing on some of the upsets at the tournament.