Many who read this piece will likely associate Tom George with his exploits on the water. The 30-year-old double Olympian is one of this generation’s most talented rowers, with multiple world and European medals to prove it, but his star quality may not even be his on-water efforts. Until recently, he held the world record for the 5km ergo and currently possesses Great Britain’s fastest-ever two-kilometre ergo (5:39).
George started out at Radley College, racing in their first eight at a national level before representing Great Britain as a junior. “I pulled a 6:04 as a junior, which was quick, but there was always a nagging feeling that others were going faster,” he explained. After heading stateside to Princeton – where George was part of the Varsity crew – his natural affinity for indoor rowing started to blossom. “I definitely pushed on in the US,” he said. “I was surrounded by really strong guys, which naturally causes you to find an extra gear. I think I pulled 5:44 in my last year at Princeton and then went 5:42 in my first year back in the UK. Having people like Mo around (on the senior team) pushed us on, because you’d just take shots at each other.”
Fast forward several years to Paris, where George and pairs partner Ollie Wynne-Griffith were two of the country’s finest athletes and one of the favourites for glittering gold. They’d had frustrating results at World Rowing Championship level (a bronze in 2022 and a silver in 2023), but everything seemed aligned for the final step on the grandest stage. “I reflect on the whole experience pretty fondly because having friends and family there was unreal, which was something we didn’t have in Tokyo,” he said. “On the race, it’s a tale of two different perspectives. We got silver, which is obviously pretty cool, but we made an amateur mistake by losing gold. We train daily not to make errors like that, so that’s the aspect of the race that hurts. We were three strokes from winning gold.”
As it was, the Croatians – who switched to the pair in the autumn of 2023 – took victory in the most dramatic circumstances, running the British down in the final strokes to seal their third consecutive Olympic gold. “We wanted the pair beforehand and were steadfast about taking that project on. Getting the chance to row that boat with Ollie was epic and I wouldn’t have done that any other way.”
George is now taking time out of rowing to collect his thoughts and prepare for what could be a transition into the ‘real world’ (alongside the small fact of getting married at the back end of 2024). He’s also been busy taking on a select few rowing-related challenges; he raced at the Head of the Charles in a ‘great eight’ alongside Wynne-Griffith and the aforementioned Sinkovic brothers and travelled to the Netherlands to compete in the Dutch Indoor Rowing Championships. There, he became accustomed to the RP3 for the first time.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got invited to do it. Due to UK commitments, I didn’t land until the day of the race and by the time I’d got through security and customs, I arrived at the venue with about an hour until my race,” he explained. “I would love to have done the event at the peak of my powers, in the middle of the season, because the event was incredibly cool. (Simon) Van Dorp won and I think he took home 5000 Euros. Rowing needs that level of pedigree and reward.”
When asked to compete, the event sent George an RP3 to Hammersmith, and his old Cambridge coach, Rob Baker, wrote him a two-week scale-up program to get some fitness into the legs. “I hadn’t really used the RP3 before except when Christian (Felkel) started coaching me and Ollie in March last year and said that the RP3 is better for steady-state indoor rowing,” explained George. “I’d agree with that – it’s a much better tool at that level of rowing. It forces you to think about your movement, how you’re progressing up and down the slide and is a more valuable simulation of on-water rowing.“
George’s observation was that the RP3 enables you to sit a lot taller and find higher rates in a way that other machines do not. “I rewatched the video, and I was leaning into the back end as I would on other machines,” he commented. “I chatted to RP3 afterwards, and they told me to sit a lot taller, pump the legs, and you can find the higher rate that allows you to crunch the time. If I’d known that, I’d probably have been able to shave five or so seconds off my time.”
With 2024 now consigned to the history books, George is looking ahead. In what turned out to be a brilliant move, he accumulated a lot of work experience whilst rowing and now can transition into real estate finance relatively seamlessly. He also wants to stay connected to the sport – getting more people into boats was a key theme that he believes would be of interest – and admits that becoming a Henley Royal Regatta would be “pretty cool”. Will we see him back in a boat or even crashing up and down on an RP3 soon? The 30-year-old is tight-lipped on his rowing prospects, but wherever he ends up, his mark on indoor and outdoor rowing has been significant.
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