Team GB’s Helen Glover ready to add British sporting history to Olympics flagbearer honour

Helen Glover feels that being chosen as flagbearer has boosted her hopes of changing into the primary British mum-of-three to win an Olympic medal.

The 38-year-old obtained her marketing campaign off to an ideal begin, combining with Rebecca Shorten, Sam Redgrave and Esme Sales space for a easy victory within the heats of the ladies’s 4.

The final 4 British athletes to get the Opening Ceremony honour have reached the rostrum and Glover is impressed to make it 5. “It really gave me an enormous enhance and I didn’t actually anticipate it to,” mentioned Glover.

“You simply stroll that little bit taller and really feel that little bit prouder. Whenever you come to the Video games, there’s numerous predictability and issues are going to occur. That’s one thing I didn’t know, anticipate, or predict. It’s one of many few issues that’s thrown at you and it’s not a destructive – it’s a constructive shock.”

In Thursday’s closing, Glover will race to make British sporting historical past in what appears to be like set to be a decent battle with a powerful Dutch crew.

Three kids and two Olympic gold medals later, she nonetheless feels the identical on the beginning line as she did at London 2012.

“The bizarre factor is, when you transport your self into the ‘me’ on any begin line within the final decade, there’s not a lot distinction,” mentioned Glover, who’s certainly one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s Nationwide Lottery-funded World Class Programme, permitting them to coach full time, have entry to the world’s greatest coaches and profit from pioneering medical assist – which has been important on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Video games. . “The best way I believe, the best way I really feel, the best way I act, it’s simply me.

“Whether or not I’ve obtained three kids or whether or not I’m at my first Olympics, it simply looks like I’m in a spot the place I’m able to exit and do what I can.”

Every little thing factors to a bumper British medal haul at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium and 7 crews have already safely negotiated their heats within the regatta as an entire.

Emily Craig and Imogen Grant have been so relaxed in successful their girls’s light-weight double sculls warmth that the previous’s ideas turned to meals.

“I obtained fairly hungry in the course of it,” mentioned Craig, who will race once more within the semi-finals on Wednesday. “I used to be simply desirous about lunch – dreamy.”

The boys’s pair of Tom George and Ollie Wynne-Griffith watched their closest rivals Switzerland squeezed out of the automated qualification locations within the first of three heats.

After an early scare from Germany, George and Wynne-Griffith held their nerve to ease into Wednesday’s semi-finals.

“I believe we executed fairly properly,” mentioned George. “We knew folks would leap out, it’s the Olympics, the Germans clearly had a remit to not come final and get via to the semi-final. We stayed actually calm.”

The boys’s 4 made a strong begin and are decided to write down their very own Olympic historical past within the closing on Thursday.

Crew GB gained the occasion 5 instances in a row from 2000 to 2020 with legendary names like Steve Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent and Andy Triggs-Hodge to the fore.

After the crown was misplaced in Tokyo on account of a evident steering error, Freddie Davidson, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Oli Wilkes are campaigning to convey the title again to Britain.

Their bid to take action started as they completed second of their warmth behind a speedy Kiwi crew, who will head into the ultimate as favourites alongside USA.

“We all know concerning the legacy,” mentioned Aldridge.

“Once we first got here into this mix, we didn’t trouble taking a look at what comes earlier than us as a result of we’re not them. We are able to’t affect historical past and legacy, we will simply do our personal factor.

“No matter what occurred in Tokyo, we need to construct our personal boat, our personal rhythm and our personal crew and make our personal historical past.”

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