Lauren Irwin

Lauren was first introduced to rowing at her secondary school, St Bedes in Peterlee at 13 years old.

Her PE teacher wanted to form an indoor rowing team so they could compete against other schools in the local area. At the time rowing wasn’t even a sport she had heard of, and after much persuasion by the PE teacher she decided to give it a go. She was a swimmer at the time but was looking to try something new. After winning events at the County Durham School Games she was invited to join the Junior High Performance Academy run by the Durham University coaches and students. Wade Hall-Craggs and Harriet Tebbs were her mentors and guided her into the sport.

She joined Chester-le-Street Rowing Club later that year, even though she fell into the water lots of times, she started loving the sport more and more and really got hooked. Coaches Arran Lewcock and Steven Thompson developed her as a junior athlete and coached her to her first Great Britain vest at the Junior World Championships in 2016. She was so inspired after racing at her first international event and watching the 2016 Olympic Games that she wanted to see how far she could push herself in the sport.

Lauren studied at Durham University from 2016-2019 and was coached by Ian Shore and Wade Hall-Craggs. During her time at Durham, she went to the U23 World Championships 3 times and won Gold in 2019 in the Women’s four. She moved away from home to Henley-on-Thames to row at Leander in 2019. Her coach, Ross Hunter developed her further as an athlete and prepared her for senior racing. She was invited to row full time as a GB athlete at Caversham in 2021 ready for the new Olympic cycle to start. Since then she has picked up several international medals and her dream is to be selected to race at the Paris Olympics this season.

There have been no Olympic athletes from her hometown in Peterlee, and to be able to achieve this would make her very proud. She has always been active since a young age going from sport to sport, and her brother was always her number one competition. Her parents would drive them around the country, competing in whatever sport they were playing. Her family inspires her everyday and she wouldn’t be where she is today without their continued support.