NORTHERN Ireland’s latest Olympic medal success, Rebecca Shorten, wanted gold but settled for silver as part of the Great Britain women’s four rowing team in Paris.
“We’ve done a good job, we would have been very happy with gold and that’s what we were going out there for but we’ll take the silver,” said Belfast rower Rebecca.
Rebecca, along with Helen Glover, Sam Redgrave and Esme Booth, were fastest in qualifying but missed out on gold, which was won by the Netherlands.
In a reversal of GB’s success in the quadruple sculls on Wednesday, in which Hannah Scott from Coleraine won gold, it was the Dutch who pipped the British crew to the line by a margin of 0.19 seconds.
The GB crew looked despondent at the finish, in contrast with the celebrations of the Dutch who were in the adjacent lane.
There was nothing to separate the crews at the 1,000m mark of the race as the Dutch held a narrow lead of 0.31 seconds.
That margin barely changed as the bows of the boats swapped positions on several occasions on the run to the line.
It was the Dutch who were able to celebrate gold, while Great Britain had to settle for silver.
Rebecca became the fifth athlete from Northern Ireland to win a medal in Paris with fellow rower Philip Doyle helping Ireland to bronze in the men’s double sculls alongside Daire Lynch.
Their medals take the tally for athletes from Northern Ireland to five after golds for Daniel Wiffen, Jack McMillan and Hannah Scott.
Congratulating Rebecca, Sport NI interim Chief Executive Richard Archibald, said: “At Sport NI we would like to congratulate Rebecca Shorten on her Olympic silver in the Women’s Four for Team GB. Rebecca’s career has gone from strength to strength and after an agonising fourth place in Tokyo we are delighted to see her take the silver medal.
“This Olympic Games British and Irish Rowing have shown they are forces to be reckoned with. There is no doubt that these incredible performances will inspire the next generation of rowing talent here in Northern Ireland.”
