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The GB Rowing Team is the high performance arm of British Rowing. Rowing is the nation’s most continuously successful Olympic sport, having won a gold medal in every Olympic Games since 1984, and has won six Paralympic golds since the sport was introduced to the Paralympic Games programme in 2008.
GB Rowing Team
Rower // Women's Squad Date of Birth: 1st Oct 1994 (28 years old) Club: Reading University BC Height: 174cm Hometown: Hereford
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Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne is one of the most promising young female scullers in the country.
Having started her career at Hereford Rowing Club, Hodgkins Byrne is currently part of the GB Rowing Team Start programme at Reading having previously been at Gloucester-Hartpury and gained valuable senior experience during 2016.
Hodgkins Byrne has come through the GB Rowing Team ranks, representing her country as a junior at the Coupe de la Jeunesse and at three successive World Rowing U23 Championships – winning gold in the women’s double sculls at her latest outing.
At the opening World Cup of the 2017 season, she won bronze in a women’s quad crew which included Beth Bryan, Holly Nixon and Jessica Leyden, following it up with another bronze at the European Championships.
The quartet topped off their year with a remarkable bronze medal at the World Championships in Sarasota-Bradenton.
An impressive 2016 season saw Mathilda make her senior bow and win her first World U23 gold medal
©Peter Spurrier/Intersport Images
2016
World U23 Champion Women's Double Scull
Hodgkins Byrne finished fourth in the women’s single scull at the 2016 GB Rowing Team Olympic Trials, then won the World, U23 and Junior Trials a couple of weeks later. She was selected as a racing spare for the 2016 European Championships in Brandenburg, Germany and impressed on her senior GB debut as she won the women’s single scull B final to finish seventh overall.
She was again selected as a racing spare for the final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland, finishing fourth in her semi-final. She and Jess Leyden then formed an extremely impressive women’s double scull at the World Rowing U23 Championships in Rotterdam. Clear-water winners in both their heat and semi-final, they produced another top-class display of sculling in the final to take gold in emphatic fashion.
The 2015 season saw Hodgkins Byrne win the B final of the women’s single sculls at the GB Rowing Team Senior and U23 Trials. She had also been the fastest women’s U23 rower at the GB Rowing Team’s Winter Assessment in February 2015.
She was selected to race alongside Georgia Francis in the women’s double sculls at the World Rowing U23 Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, finishing fourth overall.
That was her second experience at world under-23 level, having finished fifth in the women’s quad scull at the 2014 Championships in Varese, Italy.
Rowing in a Great Britain U23 composite crew, Hodgkins Byrne won the elite quad sculls event at 2014 Henley Royal Regatta.
She also teamed up with Beth Rodford to finish runners-up in the women’s double sculls at the 2014 British Rowing Senior Championships.
As a member of the Gloucester-Hartpury Start Programme, Hodgkins-Byrne enjoyed quad scull success at the National Schools Regatta, British Rowing Junior Championships and at Henley Royal Regatta in 2013. She was also part of the fastest U23 crew at the British Rowing Senior Championships that year.
She learnt to row at Hereford RC in 2011 after being told by coach John Griffiths that she had the right build for the sport.
She made her GB Rowing Team debut as part of the women’s quad at the 2012 Coupe de la Jeunesse in Banyoles, Spain.
Club: Reading University BC
Role: Rower
Coaches: Tom Pattichis
Learnt to Row: Hereford RC
Original Club(s): Hereford RC, Monmouth RC, Gloucester-Hartpury RC
Original Coach(es): Ric Colborne, John Griffiths, Tom Pattichis
Hodgkins Byrne passed her A-Levels at Hartpury College in 2014 and is now studying at Reading University.
Her younger sister Charlotte was also Start programme at Gloucester-Hartpury and was part of the British women’s quad scull crew which won bronze at the 2014 World Rowing Junior Championships and gold at the 2017 World U23 Championships.
