Freddie Davidson

Freddie grew up in Barnes, a short distance from the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race course, and so his first awareness of rowing as a sport was seeing the race coming past Barnes bridge once a year.

He has always enjoyed sport and attempted cross country, swimming and rugby (all with very limited success) before he started rowing at secondary school. He also has some family connection to rowing, as his grandad represented England at the Commonwealth games in 1954.

Freddie’s rowing career took him from St Paul’s School, where he was coached by former GB international Bobby Thatcher, to Cambridge University and finally Oxford Brookes University where he rowed full time for a year before starting with the senior national team in 2021.

He is extremely proud to have won the bronze medal with Oli Wilkes, David Ambler and Matt Aldridge in the Men’s four at the 2024 Olympic Rowing Regatta in Paris.

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Outside rowing, Freddie is a keen TV watcher and a huge fan of dogs in general. He someday hopes to own one himself, but for the moment is making do with regularly accosting his teammates’ pets at training and occasionally inviting them round to his without their owners, for dogsitting. Freddie supposes the owners spend their time apart from their dogs wondering whether they will be allowed to pick them up at the end of the day.

Freddie studied engineering at university but isn’t sure whether he would like to pursue a career in this field as he feels a slight aversion to sitting at desks for prolonged periods. Therefore he feels very lucky to have been able to train full time outdoors with his friends for the last few years. Rowing has also enabled him to travel to many different countries for training camps and races, and he hopes to continue travelling and exploring outside the rowing environment. Freddie has an interest in other sports and hopes to continue learning to surf and start bouldering over the next few years.