ROWING: Mementoes for Oxford competitors after successful year (From The Oxford Times)

ROWING: Mementoes for Oxford competitors after successful year

9:36am Thursday 5th February 2009 in Sport By Mike Rosewell

David Tanner, an old boy of Abingdon School and the Great Britain team manager, was clearly at the Olympic team’s dinner at Twickenham, writes Mike Rosewell.

A total of 67 medallists from Olympians to GB junior representatives received keepsakes of a successful year.

No fewer than 13 of them had Oxford rowing connections.

Six were Beijing stars in the persons of Tom Lucy (Oxford Brookes) and Acer Nethercott (Oxford University) in the silver medal-winning eight, Frances Houghton from Wheatley, in the women’s silver medal quad scull, plus Steve Williams (Oxford Brookes) and Peter Reed and Andy Hodge (Oxford University) in the gold medal coxless four.

In the world under 23 championships, Victoria Bryant, Kirsty Myles and Rachel Jefferies, all Oxford Brookes, were all bronze medallists, while Ben Smith, a product St Edward’s and a 2008 Oxford Blue, also achieved a bronze.

Kirsty Myles and Lindsey Maguire (Wallingford) were in the women’s eight which took silver in the European Championships.

Max Gander, from Abingdon School, coxed Britain’s silver medal coxed four in the world junior championships.