Team GB roared to their first-ever gold medal in women’s quadruple sculls by winning one of the greatest rowing races ever seen.

Lola Anderson, Georgie Brayshaw, Hannah Scott, and Lauren Henry got their team off the medal mark in the most cinematic way imaginable.

The Netherlands led for 1,999 metres but not that one that mattered as the British quartet launched a fearsome sprint finish, throwing their bowball over the finish line first by a third of a canvas.

“I’ve heard reports that rowing is quite boring,” said Scott. “We just wanted to put on a show!

“For all of us, we’ve all had setbacks in each individual story, it just shows you have to persevere and learn from those experiences and keep thriving and use it as a positive.

“It’s all about staying strong in this game and that’s what we showed down to the last stroke.”

The crew came to Vaires-sur-Marne as reigning world and European champions, having unleashed a sprint finish to beat the Netherlands by a whisker at the 2023 World Championships.

As they roared across the orange buoys indicating the climax of the race, Henry yelled from the bow seat, ‘we need to go now!’

Scott guided them home with Brayshaw and Anderson giving the shell that power it needed as they launched their bowball over the line, with a photo finish giving them victory by 0.15 seconds.

It was Great Britain’s first-ever gold in the women’s quad and first medal since a run of three silvers from Sydney 2000 to Beijing 2008.

"If you’re down, it's not over," said Anderson. "You’ve always got a chance to claw your way back and that’s what we have as a crew. We have unrelenting, united trust in the fact that if we commit, we can move and that’s what we did."

This crew does indeed have a complex mix of personalities and motivations that has merged into something unstoppable, proving exactly what four strong women can achieve together.

Brayshaw was paralysed down one side after a horseriding accident while she was a teenager.

Scott is the sole survivor from a tricky Tokyo and Henry came into the squad after a shock Trials win in April 2023, moving down to train at Caversham and sweating on laundry and meal prep as recently as 18 months ago.

After watching London 2012, a 13-year-old Anderson scribbled in her diary, 'I think it would be my biggest dream in life to go to the Olympics in rowing and if possible win a gold for GB.'

A few weeks passed and embarrassed by her ambition, she ripped the page from the diary and threw it in the bin. Her father Don rescued it, and seven years later, just a fortnight before he died from cancer, gave it back.

Anderson didn’t bring Don’s note with her to Paris - it is simply too precious, and lives in a tin in her bedroom at home.

“I threw that (note) away, because I didn’t believe, why would you?” said Anderson.

“My Dad saw it before I did, he saw the potential that I had but my potential wouldn’t have been unlocked without the girls who crossed the line with me today.

“I’m very, very grateful for everyone that has got me here and he would be very proud if he was here."

Aldi are proud Official Partners of Team GB & ParalympicsGB, supporting all athletes through to Paris 2024