Olympic champion Gotrel: New rowing heroes can come to the fore at Tokyo 2020

Olympic champion Matt Gotrel is confident the new stars of British Rowing will be able to get the business done on the water once again by the time Tokyo 2020 comes around.

The 29-year-old from Chipping Campden was part of the Great Britain team that topped the medal table at Rio 2016, with his men’s eight claiming one of three gold medals.

But Gotrel was one of several rowers, along with team-mate Andrew Triggs Hodge, to retire from sport following the Games as British Rowing went through a significant transition phase.

And while many of the big names of the past are no longer present, the double world champion has no doubt in his mind that a new generation of rowers can follow in their illustrious footsteps.

“At the end of an Olympiad, when you have a successful Rio like we did, a lot of athletes have achieved their goal and, a bit like me, have moved on to life after rowing,” he said.

“It’s a big intake of news guys and they’ve got to find their feet in the team, so we’re kind of going through that transition phase now.

“There are definitely a few guys who have been knocking on the door for a while, the likes of Matt Rossiter and guys like that, they’ve been there and done it.

“They’ve done it at different levels, but they’ve got a lot of natural talent, and I think the sculling team is also doing really well, you can look at a lot of those guys.

“They have definitely come forward from the Rio cycle, so they’ve been there, they’ve been out to an Olympics before and they have all got points to prove. They all know what they’re doing, and I think they are going to be right up there when it comes to the medal in Tokyo.”

The former international sailor, who also won European silver and bronze, expects the World Championships in Bulgaria to provide a good yardstick on where the current crop is at.

And Gotrel has backed the men’s quadruple sculls team of John Collins, Jonny Walton, Graeme Thomas and Tom Barras to shine in the next two years as they build towards Tokyo.

“At the moment the quad is looking pretty good and they will try and keep that boat together for Tokyo, I think that’s an event they can win,” he said.

“They have proven that this season and last season, they have won events like the World Cup at the start of the year, and that’s probably going to be the title boat for the sculling side.

“On the sweep side it’s hard to say, there is a very strong Australian four out there, so it depends if the guys want to take them on head to head or Jürgen thinks the best bet is to go for the eight again.

“But then you’ve got the Germans to look at there as well, but in 2016 we didn’t win a rowing race all year and then came to Rio and got the business done there.

“It will be interesting to see but I think we’ll definitely see a quad contending for the medals and then maybe a four or an eight also contending.”

Gotrel was speaking in his role as City Champion for Bristol at the inaugural Power8 Sprints event at Bristol Harbour Festival, where eight cities battled it out in races over 350m.

The innovative knockout competition was launched by British Rowing to attract a new audience to the sport and Gotrel believes Power8 is exactly what rowing needs for its future development.

“It is very different and rowing needs to keep up with other sports, that’s the way things are going now, so shorter racing will keep people more interested,” he said.

“It’s a new initiative for British Rowing and it’s been a really exciting as we had new crowds, with lots of people down for the Harbour Festival, so it’s great to see lots of new people watching the sport.”

The inaugural Power8 Sprints took place in Bristol on 22nd July. To find out how the action unfolded visit www.power8sprints.com