Getty Image / Francois Nel
Olympic rower Lola Anderson won a world championship for Great Britain last year in the women’s quad sculls and capped it off today with a Paris Olympics gold medal in the same event along with her boatmates Georgie Brayshaw, Hannah Scott, and Lauren Henry. After winning the gold medal, an emotional Lola Anderson told the world how much this meant to her.
Lola first dreamed of winning a gold medal in rowing during the 2012 Olympic Games in London when she saw Helen Glover and Heather Stanning win gold in the women’s pairs for Great Britain. Then a teenager, Lola Anderson decided it was her dream to follow in their footsteps so she wrote it down in her diary.
The entry in Lola Anderson’s diary read “My name is Lola Anderson and 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.”
Thinking it was silly, teenage Lola ripped the page out and threw it in the trash where her dad found it. He kept it in a safe and 7 years later, he gave that piece of paper to Lola in 2019 while he was being treated in the hospital for cancer. Two months later he would pass away but Lola Anderson had that note, preserved by her father, as an enduring symbol of how much her father loved her and believed in her.
After winning a gold medal in the women’s quad sculls, Lola Anderson told reporters her father “saw the potential I had, but my potential wouldn’t have been unlocked without the girls that crossed the line with me today.”
She said she gets nervous taking the note with her anywhere, joking “what happens if a suitcase gets lost, or something like that?” But Lola Anderson also said she cannot wait to show it to her own children one day, adding “Given that this journey started with my dad and my family, I can’t wait to show this medal to my children some day and inspire them to take a path.”
I’m sorry but this story is just incredible to me and one that I can relate to so much. I did crew in HS and after my mother passed away a few years ago I found a few boxes she had that contained every newspaper cutout with my name in it from every time we won a race, which was often (multi-time state champs), every photo she’d taken from my days on that team, and countless mementos from that chapter of my life that I’d completely forgotten about.
Here’s a look at the four rowers that won gold for Great Britain in the women’s sculls:
For anyone out there unfamiliar with ‘sculls’ in rowing it’s pretty simple, sculling involves two oars per rower and ‘sweeps’ is when each rower only has one oar. Lola and her quad mates specialize in sculling.