Rowing for Gold with Alex Gregory

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Bremont Ambassador Alex Gregory is one of the most successful British rowers in history. Double Olympic Champion and multiple World Champion #alexgregory has been a full member of the men's squad from 2006 - 2016 and was awarded the MBE in the 2013 New Year's Honours list. Gregory led Great Britain to victory in 2012 and 2016, and he is now the Patron of the British Exploring youth charity and a graduate of the GB Rowing Team Start Programme and current Captain of The Leander Club. We caught up with Alex as the Tokyo Olympics 2020 comes to a close.

HOW DO YOU FEEL TEAM GB ARE PERFORMING IN THIS YEAR'S OLYMPIC GAMES, HAVE YOU BEEN CHEERING THEM ON?
Unfortunately, I've been away working in Namibia during the first half of this year's games. I missed every single rowing race which really was painful. I back the team wholeheartedly and know many of the athletes well. I've been working as an athlete mentor for a couple of years and so have a connection with many of them. I managed to catch the results in brief pockets of Namibian Wifi, but it was frustrating. As some consolation, Namibia is an incredibly beautiful and interesting country!

I think this games was always going to be tough. Firstly because of the pandemic. Every nation and each athlete involved have had different experiences and been affected in different ways so there's no uniformity there. Some will have done well from it, others not so. Secondly for the British team there was a huge number of retirees after the last Olympics in Rio 2016. This meant only one male rower and three female rowers were in this year's team. On the start line of an Olympic Games experience counts for a lot. As a young team it's always going to be a big ask to compete for the gold medals we've come to expect in the British rowing team. As a consequence we finished with a brilliant silver from the men's quad, a bronze from the men's 8, and a number of fourth places. These were all hard fought, excellent results, but did not match the expectation of the British rowing team born from numerous Olympic Gold medals every year since 1984! Teams are always evolving and this is just part of the process. I feel sure that Paris 2024 will be a different picture.

Further information in the press release to download