Inverness rower Heather Gordon celebrated becoming a world champion as she helped Great Britain win gold at the World Rowing Beach Sprint Championships.

The 23-year-old Inverness Rowing Club coach was part of the team which claimed victory in the mixed quad race in Genoa, Italy.

Making her debut for Great Britain, Gordon’s quad team of Rosa Thomson, Charles Cousins, Cameron Buchan and Ryan Glymond reached the final of the competition where they defeated The Netherlands to claim gold.

The format of the competition involved athletes sprinting towards their boat and then rowing out to sea to reach a buoy before heading back to land.

Gordon had been concentrating on beach sprint rowing for the past 12 months with the aim of being selected to race for Great Britain at the world championships.

She said she was delighted that all her hard work has culminated in her winning a gold medal.

“I am on top of the world at the moment and still riding the high of winning a gold medal,” she said.

“Being my first international competition having the chance to represent Great Britain, I was already enjoying the atmosphere of the event.

“But getting to row with my crewmates was just amazing and we could not have asked for a better result.

“It is definitely up there as the highlight of my rowing career so far. But I am definitely looking for more.”

Whether Gordon’s race would have been able to go ahead was in doubt due to rough sea conditions which would have made it unsafe to compete.

However, it did calm down in time for the competition which allowed Great Britain to show their class and become world champions.

She said: “All of our training sessions were cancelled and the first time that we were able to take to the water was during the time trials.

“We were kind of thrown in the deep end and we were told if the weather got worse no racing would be happening. It made things a bit exciting, but we stuck with our training plan and we were ready to go into the time trial.”

Beach sprint rowing is set to be part of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in four years time.

After winning world championship gold, Gordon says she is targeting being selected for Great Britain in 2028. But she is also planning for more international appearances in the future.

“I will be looking to the trials for the Great Britain squad next year and being selected.

“This is going to be an event at the Olympics in Los Angeles. I will be looking to get into competing in single or doubles competitions.”

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