Bronze in the women’s four for Sam Courty

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University of Bath rower Sam Courty has another World U23 Championships medal to add to her collection after an excellent afternoon for the GB Rowing Team in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

Courty, a Santander Sports Scholar who has just graduated in Sports & Exercise Science, won bronze in the women’s four with Emily Ford, Melissa Wilson and Holly Hill on Saturday.

As in their previous two outings, the British crew took the final by the scruff of the neck and matched the United States stroke for stroke for the first 600m. The US, looking to defend the title won 12 months ago in Varese, edged ahead and a big push from the Canadians took them into second place.

However, the British four had established themselves in the medal positions and were untroubled by a late sprint from Australia as they took bronze in 6:56.83.

“It’s awesome,” said a delighted Courty. “We had a good start and then we just stuck to the plan.”

It was a second successive World U23 Championships medal for Courty and Ford, who were part of the women’s eight that won silver in 2014.

Courty is part of the GB Rowing Team Start Programme at the University of Bath, an innovative and successful talent identification and development initiative through which Helen Glover emerged to win Olympic, World and European gold.

There was disappointment for University of Bath Economics student Frazier Christie, also part of the Start programme, as his men’s quadruple scull crew had to withdraw from their semi-final due to illness.

The GB Rowing Team won four medals in total on Saturday afternoon and have six more crews in finals on Sunday morning.

Photo above: Sam Courty, Holly Hill, Melissa Wilson and Emily Ford with their bronze medals in Plovdiv by Peter Spurrier / Intersport Images.

Report courtesy of the Team Bath press office at Matchtight Ltd