Great Britain tops Olympic rowing medals table

Great Britain earned four gold medals that saw three of them coming in women’s events – the women’s pair, double and lightweight double. This is the first time that British rowing has taken Olympic gold in women’s events. The women’s pair of Heather Stanning and Helen Glover earned the recognition of being the first women to win Olympic gold. They were also the first gold for Great Britain at the London Olympic Games.

The men’s four won gold for Great Britain which continued their Olympic winning streak in this event – a streak that began at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. This means that coach of the four, Juergen Grobler has coached gold medal crews at every Olympics since he started coaching for Great Britain in 1992.

Australia was next on the medals table with a total of six medals, but they missed out on taking gold. This is the first time Australia has not won gold in rowing since 1988. New Zealand, with a total of five medals, picked up three golds – their best result ever in Olympic rowing. The golds came in the men’s pair, men’s single sculls and men’s double sculls.

Despite their relatively small rowing population, Denmark did remarkably well. They won a total of three medals including gold in the lightweight men’s double sculls when Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist got in front in just the last 20m of the race to overtake the British 2008 Olympic Champions. Denmark also took silver in the women’s single and bronze in the lightweight men’s four. This bronze means Denmark has medalled every time in the lightweight four since it was added to the Olympic schedule in 1996. Eskild Ebbesen has been in all five of these boats.

South Africa’s crew of James Thompson, Matthew Brittain, John Smith and Lawrence Ndlovu won their first ever gold medal in Olympic rowing when they finished first in the lightweight men’s four.

Likewise for Ukraine. Winning the women’s quadruple sculls meant the first ever Olympic gold for Ukraine and it was done by Kateryna Tarasenko, Nataliya Dovgodko, Anastasiia Kozhenkova and Yana Dementieva.

Overall 18 countries took Olympic rowing medals at the London Olympics.