THREE local rowers played their part as record-breaking Great Britain lifted the World Cup for the fourth successive year on Sunday.
Former Abbey Gate College and Bishop Heber High School student Vicky Thornley and King’s School, Chester, graduates Olivia Whitlam and Chris Bartley made the podium in the third and final round in the series in Lucerne.
Great Britain won medals in 11 of the 14 events in Switzerland to end their season with a record 231 points.
Thornley, 22, from Holt, and 24-year-old Whitlam, from Warrington, were part of the all-new Great Britain women’s eight that added to the gold and silver medals they won in Bled and Munich by finishing third behind the USA and Canada.
“I didn’t really think about all this at the start of the season,” said 6ft 3in former model and showjumper Thornley, who only took up rowing three years ago after being handpicked by the UK Sports’ Sporting Giants programme, which identifies tall people with the potential to excel at Olympic sports.
“I was just concentrating on getting a seat in the boat, so it’s really good to win medals. We’ve still got the World Championships to come so that’s the next thing to concentrate on.”
Beijing Olympic Games competitor Whitlam added: “We had learnt a lot from Munich and we will keep tweaking things and finding more speed.”
Bartley, from Farndon, certainly found more speed as the lightweight men’s four came back from the dead to win the race of the day and build on the gold and silver they claimed in the opening rounds in Slovenia and Germany.
“It makes up for those years when I wasn’t getting much out of the sport,” said 26-year-old Bartley.
“We have had 10 races and won nine so it feels really good. We did exactly what we said we would do here – we had the confidence to do it.”
