Great Britain’s para-rowers are all set to take over from the brilliant performances of the Olympic rowing team in Paris and thrill us with their stories on and off the water. ParaGB has won gold medals at every Paralympic Games since rowing joined the programme at Beijing 2008 and they are ready to continue that trend and take it to the next level.
A tight-knit group of 10 para-athletes will compete in four events, all with the potential to win medals and boasting incredible life stories. One crew is seeking to extend a remarkable record while another will race in an event that is new to the programme. There is a coffee expert, a cancer campaigner and a former Invictus competitor among them and two have become parents within the past 18 months.
The PR3 mixed coxed four (PR3 is where rowers have the use of legs, trunk and arms) is Giedre Rakauskaite, Frankie Allen, Ed Fuller and Josh O’Brien. They are coxed by Erin Kennedy and are aiming to continue Great Britain’s stunning 13-year winning streak in the event. Along with their coaches, the crew have managed to use the pressure from this record as a positive force as they consistently target improving their own world best time. Rakauskaite describes the unbeaten legacy as a privilege.
O’Brien raced his way into the crew this year, while Kennedy and Rakauskaite won gold in Tokyo. Kennedy is a wise hand in the coxing seat, always across the detail of what the crew needs to focus on throughout training and racing. She shared the ups and downs of that journey publicly and after being diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2022 continued competing during chemotherapy, including winning the 2022 European Championships.
After a short break for a double mastectomy and 15 rounds of chemotherapy, Kennedy returned to win the 2023 European Championships a year to the day from her cancer diagnosis. She is an active advocate for women’s breast health.
Results suggest the crew will continue to dominate in Paris. When they line up for the final next Sunday, there will be some poignant history for Rakauskaite as that will be the anniversary of the car accident that caused her injury as a teenager, which then led to a Paralympic classification. There is so much on the line for all of these athletes and their families each time they race.
The PR3 mixed double sculls is a new event and the crew of Sam Murray and Annie Caddick are on a steep learning curve. They have raced well throughout the season with a bronze at the European Championships. This event has had some really tight finishes so expect a race that will go all the way to the line.
The PR2 mixed double sculls (PR2 is where rowers use only their trunk and arms) brings the double Paralympic champion, Lauren Rowles, together with Gregg Stevenson, a former Royal Engineers commando. Stevenson suffered a traumatic injury in 2009 in Afghanistan, resulting in a double leg amputation. He makes his Paralympic debut and fulfils an ambition ignited when he tried out for the Invictus Games in 2018 when his powerful rowing machine scores led to advice to aim for the Paralympics.
Initially aiming for Tokyo, surgery forced him to step back and he thought his chance had gone. But when Rowles’s former doubles partner, Laurence Whiteley, retired in 2022, Rowles phoned Stevenson to ask if he would be up for trialling for Paris. They won gold at the 2023 World Championships with a world-best time and remain unbeaten since then. Outside rowing, Stevenson is studying psychology and draws on his own experiences to support others as a mental health practitioner for an NHS veteran-specific service called Op Courage.
Rowles targets her third successive Paralympic gold medal on the next part of her remarkable journey since waking up as a 13-year-old paralysed from the waist down from transverse myelitis. Inspired by the London 2012 Paralympic Games a year later, Rowles took up wheelchair track racing. She transitioned to rowing in 2015 and won at the Rio 2016 Paralympics.
She is a passionate advocate for greater inclusion in sport and says she found an even deeper source of motivation for Paris after her partner and wheelchair basketball Paralympian, Jude Hamer, gave birth to their son this year.
One of the most popular characters in the rowing team is Ben Pritchard, who competes in the PR1 men’s single sculls (PR1 means the rowers use arms and shoulders). A proud Welshman who grew up as an enthusiastic young sailor and then triathlete, his life changed in an accident that left him in a wheelchair at the age of 24.
Finding rowing and a sporting challenge in the form of the Paralympics has shaped his life. He is a speciality coffee expert and has been honing his skills of roasting and blending alongside daily training. Pritchard finished fifth in Tokyo and will face rivals with plenty of experience. Having moved up into bronze position in the world championships in 2022 and 2023, and won his first international gold medal in the last World Cup event before Paris, he is firmly focused on making the podium.
Watching their Olympic teammates navigate finishing positions separated by less than the blink of an eye will have sharpened the final preparations among the British para-rowing crews. Expect more moments of inspiration, heart-stopping finishes and emotional moments from this extraordinary team.
