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Bourne finishes rollercoaster season with silver

Tom George is hoping his bronze medal won at the World Rowing Championships can help to propel him to gold.
George Bourne finished a difficult season with silver at the World Rowing Championships. (Getty Images for British Rowing)

By Tom Harle

George Bourne rode the wave of a topsy-turvy season to chisel out silver at the World Rowing Championships.

The Cambridge rower joined forces with Harry Leask, Matt Haywood and Thomas Barras to reach the podium in the men’s quad sculls in Račice, Czech Republic.

Bourne’s season began in the double with Haywood and ended on the global rostrum on his first appearance at the Championships.

He said: “I’ll be celebrating this one all winter!

“Matt and I were quite consistently just outside the medals so to finish on the podium here, it’s an awesome feeling.

“I’m chuffed to be with these guys and it was brilliant to work with Matt. To come away with a medal is a real plus.”

The quartet successfully roused themselves from the disappointment of finishing fourth at August’s European Championships in Munich.

Having been beaten by the Italians into second in Thursday’s semi-finals, Britain let Italy and Poland go to the front in the early stages.

They made a move in the third 500m and overhauled Italy, beating them to silver by more than a second although the Poles slipped clear to gold by the same margin.

Leask said: “It’s been very up and down this season, we didn’t have the best start. But this result speaks for itself and it’s amazing to be back on the podium.

“What an exciting project this is to be a part of. We’ve grown massively as a crew even in this regatta.

“We’ve been to some dark places but we’ve managed to turn it around and couldn’t have ended the season much better.”

Leask and Barras were part of the Olympic medal-winning quad alongside Jack Beaumont and Angus Groom, who have since retired.

Nottingham-born Haywood paid tribute to the pair’s guiding role through a choppy campaign.

Haywood said: “These guys have helped us.

“George and I have been in quads before at age-group level but coming in and making the step up to senior, we struggled in the double against some competitive fields.

“These guys have really helped us with the experience of how they dealt with it last year. It’s been about putting results behind us, we put the Europeans behind us and kept moving.

“We were always on the right track. We’ll have a lot to reflect on this year but we can hit next year really strong now.”

The quad’s Tokyo silver was Britain’s best result in a troubled Games with Barras hailing a remarkable turnaround.

Britain won seven medals in Olympic and Paralympic classes in a single Saturday session, leaving them top of the medal table with nine.

Barras said: “It’s really exciting. We had some underwhelming performances last year but this team has really gelled, really pulled together.

“We’ve just built on what we had before with the sculling team. We’ve built for two Olympic cycles now with such strength in depth.”

British Rowing is responsible for the development of rowing in England and the training and selection of rowers to represent Great Britain. The GB Rowing Team is supported by the National Lottery Sports Fund. To find out more, and to follow the ongoing World Championships in Racice, head to https://www.britishrowing.org/