TRAIL TO TOKYO: North-East duo Jo Wratten and Beth Bryan reflect on successful rowing season

After stepping out of the Under-23 ranks last winter, Bryan and Wratten both made an immediate impression on the senior stage as they joined fellow Tees RC member Kat Copeland in British Rowing’s elite squad.

Bryan, who is from Stockton, competed in the women’s quadruple sculls and claimed a bronze medal at both the World and European Championships as a newly-formed British crew established themselves as one of the leading sculling units in the world.

Wratten, who hails from Middlesbrough, formed part of the women’s eight, and claimed a World Cup silver medal as well as finishing fifth in the World Championships final.

The North-East duo are now mainstays of the senior British squad, and are already back in winter training as thoughts begin to turn to the 2018 season. Next year provides the last real chance for experimentation before the qualifying process for the Tokyo Olympics begins, and will see the British team get a rare chance to compete in front of their home fans when Glasgow stages the rowing regatta for the revamped European Games, a multi-sport event that will be jointly staged in Scotland and Germany.

“It’s been a great season, but the thing with being part of a successful team like ours is that you can never stand still,” said Bryan, who is a former student at Egglescliffe School. “There’s always another competition to aim for, or another ambition to try to achieve.

“Certainly with our quad, we’re all really proud of what we’ve achieved this year. But we know it’s just the start of what we want to do over the course of the next few years.

“Next year, the European Championships are a big target because they’re being staged at Strathclyde Park in Glasgow. For those of us who come from the North, it’s a great chance for our family and friends to be able to see us again.

“That will be great, and then there’s another World Championships in Bulgaria at the end of September. Once they’re done, it’ll be really be time to start fully concentrating on Tokyo. Although the Olympics are the Olympics, so they’re always in the back of your mind anyway.”

Bryan teamed up with Jess Leyden, Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne and Holly Nixon to win bronze at the Worlds, but it was the quartet’s performance at the European Championships at the start of the season that left the most indelible impression on her memory.

For all that she won a host of medals in the junior ranks, stepping into the senior set-up was still a big move, especially as it meant Bryan having to relocate from her native North-East. By making it on to the podium at the Europeans, she had immediate proof that the sacrifices were worthwhile.

“The Worlds were amazing, but I’d say the medal at the Europeans was the highlight of the season,” said Bryan. “That was the first time we’d put ourselves out there and shown everyone what we were capable of.

“We thought we were going well in training, but you never really know until you test yourself in a competition. That was the first medal the women’s quad had won since 2010, and it was the moment when we all said, ‘You know what, we could be on to something really special here’.”

Wratten experienced similar emotions, with the women’s eight finishing fourth in the final of the Europeans before going on to claim a silver medal at the World Cup event in Poznan.

The majority of the rowers that claimed an Olympic silver in the eight in Rio have either retired or are taking a sabbatical to consider their future, so most of this year’s crew were stepping up from the youth ranks like Wratten.

They travelled to the World Championships in the United States with high hopes of winning a medal, but were forced to settle for fifth in a remarkable final that saw the first five crews separated by just three seconds.

“At the start of the season, if you’d have said I’d have established myself in the eight and competed in the finals of the World Championships, I’d have snapped your hand off,” said Wratten. “It’s more than I could ever have hoped for really.

“But once you’re involved in that, you’re always pushing for more, so there was a sense of disappointment that we came away from the Worlds without a medal.

“We definitely thought we were capable of finishing in the top three, and for most of that final, it looked like we would. We were all gutted at the end, but we’ve had a bit of a chance to reflect on it now and the reality is that we were just three seconds away from winning gold. It’s a wide-open event at the moment, and we’re right in the mix.”

Like Bryan, Wratten’s ultimate ambition is to secure a place at the 2020 Olympics, and a change to the schedule for Tokyo means there are now four extra women’s sweep seats available. A women’s four has been added to the Olympic programme, but while that creates extra opportunity for the current members of the team, it will also lead to increased competition.

“It’s an exciting time to be in Olympic contention,” said Wratten, who lives with Bryan close to British Rowing’s high-performance training base at Caversham. “On one hand, the fact there’ll be a women’s four in Tokyo means you’ve got more chance of getting a place on the team. But over the next couple of years, it’ll also mean more people are in the mix fighting for one of those spots, and there might be a bit more chopping and changing to try to get combinations that work.

“There’s so much depth on the team now, and that’s before you could see some of the Olympic team from Rio coming back into the squad.

“Just because you’ve had some good results this year, that doesn’t really mean anything when the selectors are looking at their team for next season. We’re back in training already, and have our first big winter test before Christmas.

“We’re going on to the water every morning, knowing we can’t afford any let up. If you’re not giving everything over the next couple of months, you can forget about competing in the big events next summer.”