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Team GB’s Lauren Henry revealed the moment the women’s quadruple sculls crew went for broke to grab Olympic glory in Paris.
The British quartet of Henry, Georgie Brayshaw, Hannah Scott and Lola Anderson trailed the Netherlands from the start, and their dream of striking gold at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium seemed to be over just metres from the finish line.
But with one final British push the two boats finished side by side – and a photo-finish was declared on the TV coverage.
Cue nervous glances, inside boats and beyond to the stands, to the big screen where it was soon revealed that Britain had beaten the Netherlands by the tiny margin of 0.15 seconds.
“It was just amazing,” said Henry, 22, from Lutterworth in Leicestershire.
“I could feel we were moving on the Dutch crew, and one of my jobs in bow is to call to the other girls.
“I said ‘we are going now, we need to go now’ as I could sense we were coming back with that momentum.
“We started charging back and I thought ‘we’ve got this’. We’re used to close racing, but that was really tight.
We started charging back and I thought 'we've got this'— Team GB rower Lauren Henry
“I’d felt we’d won it because I sensed I was ahead of the Dutch bow girl, but it wasn’t until I looked at the big screen and saw GBR 1 that I believed it. That moment was just ecstatic.
“We’ve come back from a quite long way before, and the moment you’ve lost that belief you’ve lost the race.”
The victorious British crew were presented with their gold medals by The Princess Royal, a former Olympian.
Henry said the Princess told them that the margin of victory was a “bit close for her liking”, with Northern Ireland’s Scott admitting that the wait for confirmation provided a few anxious seconds.
“We thought we’d got it 10 strokes from the line and then we just came through,” said Scott.
“I could see the heads and I thought ‘I think we have this’, but I just didn’t look out.
“I wanted that confirmation, you never know until it’s made official.
“People think rowing’s quite boring, but we did this at the world championships last year. We like to give people a tight race.”
Leeds rower Brayshaw said she held the belief of her teammates in those final moments saying that the Dutch could be overhauled, while Anderson, from Richmond, added that playing catch-up never concerns the British quartet.
She said: “Racing is always going to be fluid, always dynamic, because all of these competitors are Olympians.
“It’s never over at 500, 1000 or 1500 metres. We know that if you commit, you move.”
Germany took the bronze three-and-a-half seconds back, while Ukraine – who had been quicker than Britain over the first 500m – eventually finished fifth.
It was the perfect start for Team GB at the Paris regatta after failing to win a single gold in Tokyo three years ago.
Scott said: “We’ve all had personal journeys to how we’ve got here. It’s not been easy and there’s been a lot of setbacks in each individual’s story.
“It just shows that you’ve got to persevere, learn from those experiences and use them as positives.”
