Shepperton has a World Champion in its midst. Local boy Matthew Tarrant has just been crowned with a gold medal at the World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam. A pupil at St Nicholas and then Thamesmead, Mat took to the sport in his youth, rowing at Weybridge, then Walton and going on to study at Oxford Books College which is a huge rowing college. He went professional soon after.
His is a story of an ordinary boy who made it.
Could it be that the next stop is an Olympic medal? The season this year has been challenging. The team had in fact only raced with a set crew and a good amount of time together at World Championships.
Mat was the only member of the eight who was constantly part of the team. He was in the eight when they raced the 2 year champions Washington University at the Windermere Cup in Seattle. Mats team won! In the European Championships they finished in 3rd behind Germany and Russia. At Henley Royal Regatta Mat raced with another line up of crew mates, which would end up being the set crew for the World Championships but in a different order. They beat a strong French eight and won the Grand Challenge Cup which is the blue ribbon event. They raced again at the Third World Cup in Lucerne again finishing 3rd behind Germany and Russia.
After a solid 4 weeks of training camps in Austria and Portugal they arrived in Amsterdam for the World Championships in a new crew line up and more confident than ever. This was a strong crew but in the early stages still needed to gel and finished second in their heat behind Germany but won the repechage ahead of Russia. In the final it was all to play for.
They started to feel they had finally cracked the rhythm they had been trying for all year. Mat talks us through the race “I remember sitting on the start line with my heart pounding, crews from other boats including mine were shouting and hitting the sides of their boats. When the green light was shown the power in the boat erupted and it felt like a rocket leaving earth.
We were going for gold and there wasn’t anything the Germans, Russians and USA could do about it. We moved through 1000m (half way) with our boat in the lead and I was thinking, just stay ahead, do everything you can to not let these Germans break through you and take your gold. The Germans had been together all year and we had been together for 5 weeks. We crossed the line 0.4 seconds ahead of the Germans with Poland just behind them.
When you cross the line in first place in front of such a strong group of nations at the highest level you have ever competed at, you just boil over with emotions. I was overcome with happiness and relief that we had finally showed a glimpse of our potential. I couldn’t be happier with how the race went and of course the result we achieved. I became World Champion for the first time in 2012 as an U23 and since then I have been hungry for another title”