With Great Britain’s rowers picking up medals in Rio, seven former and current Gloucester-Hartpury rowers with Olympic dreams of their own will be on show as the World Rowing Championships for Under-23s and junior rowers get underway in Rotterdam.

The college will have rowers competing for Great Britain in the Under-23s women’s eight, double and quad crews as well as in the junior women’s four when the competition begins this Sunday (21st August 2016). A large number of rowers at the event will have aspirations to push for places in the senior rowing teams for the 2020 and 2024 Olympics.

Sisters Charlotte and Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne will have the chance to cheer one another on after being selected in separate boats. Mathilda lines up in the Under-23s doubles while Charlotte occupies one of three seats in the Under-23s women’s eight taken by former Hartpury students. Charlotte is joined by fellow graduates Chloe Brew and Alice Bowyer, with the trio set to get their challenge underway on Monday (August 22nd).

Flo Pickles, who was part of the AASE rowing programme run at Hartpury, is the final Under-23s rower in action in the Netherlands. The 19-year-old will take part in the women’s quad competition.

In the junior side of the competition, Hartpury talents Bryony Lawrence and Frances Russell will line up alongside one another in the women’s four. The pair have enjoyed an extremely successful season, winning four national titles including the Diamond Jubilee Challenge Cup in the junior girls’ quad sculls at Henley Royal Regatta.

Hartpury’s rowing coach, Tom Pattichis, said: “Our programme at Hartpury has only been running for a short amount of time in comparison to a lot of clubs so it’s great to see so many students who have come through the college pushing towards competing at the very highest level.

“All of the girls on show at the competition deserve to be there and have worked incredibly hard both during their time at Hartpury and since leaving us and it would be great to see some of them come away with medals.

“I know that all of them will have Olympic aspirations and given all the success that GB have had in London and in Rio, it would be absolutely amazing to see someone with Hartpury ties with an Olympic medal in 2020 or 2024. Obviously there is a long way to go between now and then but if they continue to work hard and perform well then they will have every chance.”