All the emotions on Day 7 in Paris

The seventh and penultimate day of the Paris 2024 Olympic Regatta saw four more sets of medals be awarded. Spectators were treated to everything from defending Olympic champions, domination of the Dutch and redemption for the British. Here’s some of the reactions from today’s medallists…

In the men’s pair, the British pair led for the majority of the race but lost it in the last few strokes when the defending champions from Croatia, Martin and Valent Sinkovic rowed through them. There was a point in the race when Valent (who celebrates his 36th birthday on Friday 2 August) thought they might not win a medal at all;

 “Honestly, I don’t know. In the middle of the race after 1000 (metres) we went up through the rates, and the others are just going better than us. 

 “At that point we thought it would be hard to get a medal, but then we said we’ll give our best and try. After 1500 (metres) we just went and we went like crazy, and we saw that we were much faster than the Swiss and Romania.

“We said we’ll go to the end and then we had a little bit of luck because the British guys caught some crab, but that’s normal if you put them under pressure; bad things can happen.”

Responding about the end of the race, Tom George (Great Britain) said;

“We had the perfect race from start pretty much to finish. We probably didn’t have the perfect last five strokes but we were done, we were clinging on. 

“To be that close is really special. The Olympics is a pressure-cooker. To be able to put out our best race when it really mattered, and we were seriously, seriously brave with it, especially after not the perfect semi. 

“We said what we wanted to do, what we wanted to change, and we went and did that. It hurts a lot to not get it in that last five strokes, last three strokes, but we’ve still got a silver medal.”

The Dutch women’s pair of Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester looked absolutely dominant in their race and cruised to a comfortable gold. Speaking after the race, Clevering expressed how that lead allowed to enjoy it;

“The whole way I thought OK, keep pushing, but from like 500 (metres) to go I thought OK, let’s enjoy this moment. It was so amazing.

“We were in quite a safe position, but we know these girls can sprint as well, so we kept talking to each other. OK, ‘go, go, go, go’. But also keep it safe, of course.”

In the lightweight men’s double sculls, Ireland repeated their victory from Tokyo 2020 when Paul O’Donovan became the first Irish athlete to medal at three Olympics and Fintan McCarthy joined the exclusive club of dual Olympians. O’Donovan commented on the strength of the field in the lightweight men’s double sculls this Olympiad;

 “There’s a lot of strong competition out there. The Greeks got off to a really good start and hung in there and put in a burst right at the end. Italy are always up there in the medals and Switzerland were pushing all the way.

“It was tough racing from everyone, so we were never sure until we got there.”

Meanwhile, Greece were over the moon with the bronze, and Antonious Papakonstantinou spoke emotionally after their race about how much it meant to them.

“We have it and I don’t think we understand it yet. We will after some time. Right now, we are flying in the sky. There is no way to describe the feelings right now. We were crying before. We are very thankful to our coach and our families. They are the ones who put us to this sport.”

The last race of the day was the final of the lightweight women’s double sculls and it was redemption for Emily Craig and Imogen Grant of Great Britain after they missed out on the podium at Tokyo 2020 by just 0.01 seconds. An emotional Craig spoke about the turnaround;

“If you told me after we crossed that line that the next three years were going to be what they were, then I would have laughed in your face. I am just overwhelmed that we are standing here, and we did it.” 

“It kind of just happened, there was so much muscle memory and the race plan over the last three years has kind of become gospel. It kind of just speaks to how process-driven we are that we went out and we lived that process right until the end.”

It was silver for Romania in this boat class and particularly pleasing for Gianina van Groningen who had come out of retirement especially to race in Paris

“Two years ago I retired from rowing. I said that I’m not going to come back, but I had some unfinished business and here I am after one year off and being back in the team we got the Olympic medal. It was the only medal lacking from the medal table and we got it.”

“Today Great Britain was better than us, but we are very happy we are here. Last year I came back to rowing just because of Paris, and luckily we were on the podium.

The final day of the Paris 2024 Olympic Rowing Regatta takes place Saturday 3 August and is expected to include another four exciting medal finals.