Rower Rebecca Shorten basking in the glow of Olympic silver medal

By Tom Harle at Vaires-sur-Marne

Belfast rower Rebecca Shorten revelled in an Olympic silver medal a long time in the making.

The 30-year-old has been the rock in Team GB’s women's four and combined with Helen Glover, Samantha Redgrave and Esme Booth to reach the podium in Paris.

Shorten is the sole survivor from the crew that finished an agonising fourth in Tokyo, making the silver all the sweeter.

“It means everything to have an Olympic medal around my neck,” said Shorten. “That’s the big one that you go for.

“I’m really proud of what we have done and to have this silver medal is amazing.”

The British crew won their heat by a huge margin and there were only ever two nations in the hunt for gold.

The top two opened up a clear-water lead on the rest of the field by the halfway stage and traded blows in the final 1000 metres,

The Dutch just about held off the GB sprint and the winning margin was 0.18 seconds.

Shorten’s silver was the latest in a string of medals for Northern Irish athletes, with her rowing team-mate Hannah Scott striking gold in the women’s quad.

“I’m so proud,” said Shorten. “The fact that there were three golds in one day is incredible and it’s really good for Northern Ireland.”

The women’s four has shape-shifted since Tokyo with Shorten, one of the strongest female sweep rowers in the world, the only constant.

The crew received widespread acclaim for their performances in 2022 with Heidi Long and Rowan McKellar, who are racing in the eight in Paris, on board.

Glover came back into the fold for Olympic qualification season and took the place of Redgrave, who picked up a finger injury and back problems, with the boat qualifying thanks to bronze at the World Championships.

A final switch-up for Olympic year saw Booth, who became the first British woman to qualify two boats for the Olympics in the pair and the eight, offer renewed vigour and a fully-fit Redgrave slot back in.

“I’ve loved this journey,” said Shorten. “It has been a building process, we’ve had great crews along the way and I have loved every moment of it.”

Shorten helped Glover add to her two golds and become the first British mum-of-three to win an Olympic medal in any sport.
In Tokyo, Glover blazed a trail as the first mother to compete for Team GB in rowing at the Olympics. The legacy of that achievement was borne out in the fact that two British mothers reached the rostrum inside an hour on one Vaires-sur-Marne morning, with Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne taking bronze in the women's double sculls.

"I feel like I worked so hard in the Tokyo year to break into the team as a mum, and I think now we're reaping the rewards for that hard work," said Glover.

"Rowing came second to a lot of the battles I had to fight throughout that year and now those battles are fought, hopefully every single mum that comes back can have a journey based on performance, rather than proving that mums can do it.

"I think normalising (motherhood) is really important. I think that sport is a massive reflection on society, and I think that to show that you can come back to a hobby, sport, to show that you can come back and excel, not despite having children, but because you have children.

"I think it's a message to society to say there is space, there should be openness, there should be encouragement for women to come back and do whatever they want to do when they've had kids."

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