Tom George won silver with partner Ollie Wynne-Griffith – also a Cambridge rower – in the Men’s Pairs at Paris 2024. Tom began rowing at school and continued as an undergraduate at Princeton, where he studied politics. Tom and Ollie were part of the GB Men’s eight crew that won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, but switched to the Men’s Pair when they both came to Cambridge to pursue a master’s.

Tom describes how the decision to go to Cambridge was initially a “risk” for his rowing career: “We were outside the team, and I think they [Team GB] thought we were just dossing around and not taking the training seriously.” However, it soon became evident that it was the right decision, “[Cambridge] was an opportunity to keep rowing but also sort of take stock of life and what we want to do. We soon solidified ourselves in the pairs and began winning races.”

“We were on the 5:20am train from Cambridge to Ely and the aim was to try and do two rows in the morning and then come back”

Coming into the Games, the pair were unbeaten in 2024, and Tom explains that the key to their success and remaining disciplined was their strong working relationship. “Ollie and I’ve known each other a long time, which is good because you can hold each other to account and you can have difficult conversations knowing that you know each other well enough. We can be frank with each other, and for both of us it was always all about striving to be the fastest we can be, which is always pretty special.”

So what did a day in the life look like, balancing training for the Olympics with a Cambridge workload?

“It was early starts, and it was pretty brutal. We were on the 5:20am train from Cambridge to Ely and the aim was to try and do two rows in the morning and then come back. And I remember I always had 11 o’clock classes. So I’d always row twice, have some food, row again, and then rush back to the train, get back to Cambridge, grab my bike, cycle up to Peterhouse, get some more food. Oh yeah, and I would squeeze in a 10 minute nap before my two hour class!”

Tom reveals that a certain sandwich shop on Bene’t Street fuelled his afternoons of yet more rowing and studying, “inevitably I’d end up in Bread & Meat having lunch after class – I went there so much, it was just an absolute staple of my Cambridge experience!”

“I could rarely take up the offer of a pub trip”

Such intense training did not come without its sacrifices. More recently, Tom describes having to miss friends’ weddings, but as a student, it was evening pub trips. “Obviously there’s quite the pub culture in Cambridge, but I could rarely take up the offer of a pub trip because normally, if I had rowing, especially the next morning, I would be in bed at nine o’clock, or I just couldn’t keep it up!”

However, he notes not everyone followed the same routine: “I was always really impressed with the undergrad guys who would go out with their friends and then just roll onto the train in the morning having had two hours sleep!”

Post–Olympics, Tom is taking time to decompress before deciding whether to continue rowing, with the possibility of making another Olympics, or forge a new path.

“I’m excited about what the future holds, because my life has always been pretty boxed into a very rigid structure, and if I do decide to carry on rowing, then I guess I’ll go back into that box. But if I don’t, then there is a lot to look forward to. Even simple things, like I have never had a weekend, because we always train on Saturdays and some Sundays. I am also excited to go on a skiing holiday! It’s written into our contracts that we can’t ski due to the high risk of injury”.