AN ’ECSTATIC’ rower from Rugby has described the ‘amazing’ moment she won gold at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Lauren Henry, a former Rugby High School student, won the the Women’s Quadruple Sculls final on Wednesday (July 31) alongside teammates Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Georgie Brayshaw.
The Netherlands had led from the start, but a final sprint and dramatic photo finish saw Lauren and her team cross the line by just 0.15 seconds to top the podium.
Lauren, 22, who now lives in Lutterworth, said: “It was just amazing!
“I could feel that we were moving on the Dutch crew, so I said, ‘We’re going now. We need to go now!’ because I could sense we were coming back.
“Georgie and Lola in the stern really drove that finish and Hannah and I were with them the whole way. We started charging back and I could feel that ‘we’ve got this’.2
Lauren, the youngest rower in Team GB, said she and her teammates had 100 per cent belief in each other.
“We knew that if we deliver our best then we could get an outcome like this, so it was heads in all the way,” she added.
“We’re used to close racing but that was really tight, I felt we’d won it but it wasn’t until I looked over and saw ‘GBR 1’ that I let myself actually believe it and that moment was just ecstatic.
“We always thought during the race that we had a chance, we’ve come back from quite a long way before, and if we believe it’s over then it already is over.
“The moment we lose that belief we’ve lost the race so no matter how far behind we are in the race we’ll always have belief until we cross that finish line.”
First-time Olympian Lauren took up rowing at the age of 13 at Leicester Rowing Club when she followed her twin sister Becky into the sport as a replacement for her Saturday morning theatre club, which had stopped for the summer.
She said: “I wasn’t very good at the start. In fact, I was really bad and the worst person at my club for a long time.
“I was so unfit it was unbelievable, and the chocolate and hot chocolate in the break between the sessions was all that stopped me from quitting the sport.”
In 2023, in her first year with the senior British team, she finished on the podium in every race – two World Cups, the European championships and world championships, with Team GB’s quad sculls crew claiming a world title.
As a junior athlete, she won the single sculls national title at the British championships in 2023.
Rugby Mayor Simon Ward congratulated Lauren via social media.
He said: “It’s got to be one of the most exciting finishes to a race. How Rugby’s Lauren Henry and her team mates managed to pull back such a gap was just incredible.”
And Lutterworth resident Lauren will now be granted Freedom of Harborough District for her achievement.
The Freedom of the District is granted to ‘persons of distinction’ who have ‘rendered eminent services’ and have a strong association with the Harborough district.
Coun Phil Knowles said “I extend my congratulations to Lauren for her outstanding achievement in bringing home the gold medal at these exciting Paris Olympics.”
The Freedom of the District will be awarded to Lauren at a special presentation following an agreement at council to award this prestigious title.
