Down to the final two races of the day and the whole games and it’s over to the eights boats at the water at Regattabahn Duisburg, the sun was blaring, the crowd was loud and we were ready to unleash six boats down the 2,000m course.
GB Students women’s eights boat was made up of Sarah Marshall (University of Oxford), Daisy Faithfull (Kings College London) Sophia Issberner (University of St.Andrews), Tia Lenihan (Newcastle University), Daisy Jackson (Durham University), Phoebe Snowden (The University of Law), Zoe Mccutcheon Durham University) Holly Youd (Newcastle University) and Beatrice Argyle (Oxford Brookes)
A battle from the off ensued between Great Britain and the Netherlands as both teams went all out to try and get the top spot come the end of the race, first 500m’s down and GB were ahead by 1.98 seconds. Another 500m goes past and we hit the half way mark and GB Students are causing with 3.14 second advantage of the Dutch.
With the line becoming closer and closer the girls kept pushing as hard as they could to ensure all their hard work across the race paid off and pay off it did as they crossed the line 3.39 seconds ahead of the next closest boat claiming the gold medal!
Post race Beatrice Argyle said “Of course there is pressure. There is pressure any time you represent your country but we can also be really proud of the legacy that Great Britain has in terms of rowing accomplishments. It’s a sport we are really good at, so we can trust that the coaches know what they are doing and we are in a system that supports us really well.”
“So, as much as there is 99 percent pressure, there is also confidence that comes with that.”
On her four teammates who also won gold in the women’s four:
“They are pretty incredible. They had a really quick turnaround between races and that’s something that’s really hard to ask of athletes. But the whole team supported them with getting them recovery food, making them walk. They did really well just to get back into it.”
Sophia Issberner added “The race was fantastic. We had so much fun. It’s been so much fun training with these girls for the last three weeks and I think we executed it really well. “The girls are amazing. We’ve gelled so well. It’s been such a fun process."
