Tokyo 2020: Team GB wins men’s quadruple sculls silver

Team GB men’s rowers won silver in the quadruple sculls, the nation’s first medal in the discipline since its introduction into the Games in 1976.

The medal came shortly after the nation’s rowing dominance in the men’s four came to an end – Great Britain had won five successive golds in the event, but this year missed out on a medal altogether.

Harry Leask, Angus Groom, Tom Barras and Jack Beaumont began the sculls in lane one, and they rowed a superb race to finish behind gold medallists the Netherlands.

The GB team was leading at the halfway point, but after being overtaken, they held off the Australians and the Polish to clinch the silver medal with a time of 5:33.75, just 1.72 seconds behind gold. Australia took the bronze, and both they and Poland were within a second of the British boat.

After the event, Beaumont said: “We decided that, as we were in lane one with an outside chance of a medal, we were going to take it to them and we really did it.

We’re hugely proud. We’ve worked so hard. We’ve been part of a rowing team that’s had huge success, a huge tradition of British rowing. But in our sculling team, there’s a tradition of being in the shadows a little bit.

“We’ve built on years of hard, hard work and near misses, just missing out, and I’m so proud to get this silver medal.”

Groom revealed that the team had faced a number of injury struggles over the year: “We’ve had a really consistent squad over the past couple of years and that’s been the focus of the season for us.

“Same stroke, day in, day out and it just really builds confidence and builds belief.

“Men’s sculling, it’s no secret, we’ve had our problems with injuries over the years. We’ve kept fully healthy over the past 18 months and that’s really made a difference.”