Imogen Grant and Emily Craig completed the 2000m Paris Olympics course in 6:47:06 minutes to take Gold in the Women’s lightweight double sculls, winning by a length.

Prior to the Olympics they were unbeaten in 22 races and achieved a World Best Time of 06:40.47 in the Lightweight Women’s Double at World Rowing Cup II in Varese 2023.

They are now hailed as ‘Champions Forever’ because there will no longer be lightweight rowing at the Olympics.

The 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki marked a historic moment in Olympic history. Initially scheduled for 1940, Helsinki’s opportunity to host the Games was postponed to the outbreak of the Second World War.

The Helsinki Games set a new standard with the most records broken, a distinction held until the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Several countries also made their Olympic debuts here, including Indonesia, Thailand, and the Soviet Union.

Trinity College students, Peter Brandt and John Macmillan, competed in the double sculls race at the 1952 Games. They decided to enter the Olympic trials rather spontaneously after a series of successful boat races in Cambridge.

Macmillan recalled, ‘[…] even with the amateur spirit that existed in those days I think we must have been quite the most inexperienced crew taking part in any event.’

They finished third in their heat and were narrowly defeated in the repechage. Despite their early exit, Brandt continued to coach rowing at Trinity for many years.

Berlin won the bid to host the 1936 Olympic Games over Barcelona at the 29th IOC Session in 1931, two years before the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany. They were the first Games to be televised, with radio broadcasts reaching 41 countries.

Representing Great Britain at sailing, the British boat Lalage won the six-metre class in Kiel, Germany, a port city on Germany’s Baltic Sea, with Christopher Boardman at the helm.

Boardman joined the family firm of Colman’s Mustard in Norwich after attending the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and Trinity College.

Boardman did not participate in any other Games after 1936. Following his wartime service as a corvette commander on Atlantic convoy duty, he later resumed his role in the family business in Norfolk.

Charles Maxwell Eley, James McNabb, Robert Morrison and Terrence Sanders – ‘the old firm’ – who had rowed together since their Eton College school days, won gold in the coxless fours.

Beating France in the semi-final with a time of 6:43 minutes, Maxwell Eley wrote to his Trinity Tutor Gaillard Lapsley and said ‘Our visit to Paris was successful thank goodness!’

New Zealander, Anthony ‘Tony’ Wilding was a leading tennis player from 1909 to 1914, winning 11 Grand Slam tournaments including Wimbledon four consecutive times (1910-13). He won a bronze medal in the men’s singles Olympic event in 1912.

Wilding also played cricket and rode a motorcycle.

A qualified lawyer, Wilding was killed during the battle of Neuve-Chapelle in 1915.