A pair and a quad. The best rowers of 2007

World Rowing Female Crew of the Year

Three World Championships ago four British women took on Jutta Lau’s formidable German women’s quad and won. In 2006 the crew again became World Champions. They made it a hat trick by winning for a third time this year. Now they have their sights set firmly on Olympic gold. The 2007 crew of Annie Vernon, Debbie Flood, Frances Houghton and Katherine Grainger are the World Rowing Female Crew of the Year.

Coached by World Rowing Coach of the Year, Paul Thompson the quad has gone from strength to strength. At the heart of the crew is Katherine Grainger. Grainger has been in the quad all three years and is Great Britain’s most successful female Olympic rower with silver from both Sydney (the quad) and Athens (the pair). Throughout her rowing career Grainger has kept studying. She has a degree in law, then gained a masters in medical law and currently she is working on a PhD. Her topic; homicide and psychopathy. Grainger is the pride and joy of Scottish rowing.

Annie Vernon is the latest addition to the crew. In 2007 she moved in to replace the injured Sarah Winckless and the winning continued. Vernon came to rowing through the British talent identification programme and was recruited into the quad after a successful stint in the women’s double.

Debbie Flood began her international rowing career as a junior nearly a decade ago. She has been with the quad for two years and, like Vernon, was recruited from the double. Flood is now an integral part of the crew.

At 193cm Frances Houghton is the tallest member of the crew and one of the most experienced. Houghton has spent a good chunk of her international career in the quad beginning in 1996 when she finished fourth as a junior. Since then Houghton has been to two Olympic Games and, as the longest serving member if the crew, Houghton raced at Athens in the quad.

World Rowing Male Crew of the Year

The busy schedule of Drew Ginn and Duncan Free of Australia meant that they were unable to pick up the award for World Rowing Male Crew of the Year in person. The duo have won back to back World Champion titles in the very competitive men’s pair event and they know to be in this position you leave nothing to chance. With that in mind Ginn and Free, in their bid to win Olympic gold, are currently planning to fit a trip to Beijing into their busy schedule.

Added to their hectic lives, the duo live 2000km apart and both are fathers to young families.

For pair rowing Ginn is the better known half of the duo in Australia. In 1999 he was gearing up for the Sydney Olympics with partner James Tomkins, but a back injury in the eleventh hour dashed his hopes of competing. Ginn wondered if he would ever row again. Two years later he was back and in 2003, with Tomkins, he won the World Rowing Championships following it up the next year with Olympic gold.

Free comes from a sculling background competing many times as Australia’s top single sculler, racking up seven Australian titles. While Ginn was racing the pair at Athens, Free was in the quad competing at his third Olympic Games. As a sculler Free has also won at Henley and the Head of the Charles.

At their first World Championships together, Ginn and Free finished first. Ginn now sits at number three on the top ten list of the best individual rowers for 2007. This is his second time as World Rowing Male Crew of the Year, also winning in 2003 with Tomkins.

The World Rowing awards winners are chosen based on nominations submitted to the FISA Executive Committee by FISA commission members, council members and staff.