HARRY BRIGHTMORE dedicated the Olympic gold medal he won in dramatic fashion to his grandma.

Brightmore, from Chester, was the cox as Great Britain’s men’s eight secured rowing gold in Paris.

Speaking to BBC Sport, Brightmore said: “My grandma was supposed to come and watch today out in Paris. But, for health reasons, she stayed at home and she was desperately, desperately disappointed and that’s my Welsh heritage from her side of the family.

“But, I know that she’ll be watching at home and just a special message to my grandma, like, this is for you.”

Brightmore started his international career rowing for Wales and then went to coxing.

After their emphatic win, which saw a jubilant Brightmore leave his coxes seat to stand and express his delight, he gave an emotional interview to BBC Sport.

He said: “That was a bit of a sprint to the death and we just took it by the scruff of the neck, you can’t really ask for much more, these guys did it perfectly. I’m so really, really proud of them. I tried to not cry but!”

The team revealed their golden charge at Paris 2024 was inspired by videos from Team GB’s Olympic-winning crew at Sydney 24 years ago.

The eight capped off a successful regatta for Britain at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium with a third gold, taking the overall medal total to eight after the women’s eight had won bronze 20 minutes earlier.

Coach Steve Trapmore was a member of Britain’s victorious Sydney 2000 eight, and gathered the current squad together last week to watch videos from his former teammates.

“As they were sending us the videos they might have felt a bit awkward and not really sure if it would mean much to us,” said Jacob Dawson, who won bronze in the men’s eight at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics before suffering a life-threatening blood clot on his lungs two years later.

While Brightmore stood up in the boat and celebrated wildly, the effort was such that Morgan Bolding and Rory Gibbs were carried away suffering from exhaustion.