Name: Tom Ransley
Event: Rowing – men’s eight
Career Highlight: Silver medals in the men’s eight at the World Championships in 2010 and 2011
Did you Know? Tom is University of York graduate (2007)
Rowing has produced gold medals for Great Britain since 1984 and the expectation is for 2012 to be no different. The expectation is actually higher for these Olympics with the same number of medals expected from the squad as in Beijing (6), however more are expected to be gold; Team GB are after a minimum of two with an unlikely possibility of six.
Tom Ransley was originally focused on basketball (standing 196cm tall) and played at county level. However he started to focus on rowing after arriving in York. His rise to success has been metoric. In 2007 he won the Britannia Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta, before rowing in the Under 23 men’s eight and coming sixth at the World Championships. He also gained two Cambridge Blues for rowing in the 2008 and 2009 Boat Races, and went into the Men’s eight in 2009.
While consistently coming just in second place to the German eight (often by around a boat length) when both Britain and Germany have raced, Britain’s eight is a serious gold medal contender. There are several factors to suggest this. First, our eight has become relatively faster year on year, despite missing the strokeman Constantine Louloudis this year. Also, an eight is such a complex boat to get perfect it only finds full pace for two weeks in a four year Olympic cycle, which is why it is the Blue Ribband event. There is a real prospect for the University of York to gain a gold medal-winning alumnus this summer.