Alison Mowbray (born 1 February 1971) is a British former rower who won a silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics competing in the women's quadruple

scull Sculling is the use of oars to propel a boat by moving them through the water on both sides of the craft, or moving one oar over the stern. A long, narrow boat with sliding seats, rigged with two oars per rower may be referred to as a scull, i ...

Rowing career

Mowbray rowed for the Liverpool University and Polytechnic Boat ClubMowbray, 2013, p.37 and the

Cambridge University Women's Boat Club Cambridge University Women's Boat Club (CUWBC) was the rowing club for women at the University of Cambridge. CUWBC fielded both a lightweight eight that races against Oxford at the Henley Boat Races, and two openweight eights that race at the ...

(CUWBC). While at Cambridge she rowed in the 1994 and 1995

Boat Races A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats. Small boats are typically found on inl ...

and served as CUWBC President in 1995. Mowbray took part in two Olympic Games, winning a silver medal, and five

World Rowing Championships The World Rowing Championships is an international rowing regatta organized by FISA (the International Rowing Federation). It is a week-long event held at the end of the northern hemisphere summer and in non- Olympic years is the highlight of ...

. In

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

she rowed in the

single sculls A single scull (or a scull) is a rowing boat designed for a single person who propels the boat with two oars, one in each hand. Racing boats (often called "shells") are long, narrow, and broadly semi-circular in cross-section in order to minimi ...

event but only qualified for the B Final, finishing fourth. In 2004, she earned her place in the national team in the GB trials and was assigned to the quadruple sculls for the upcoming

World Rowing Cup The World Rowing Cup is an international rowing competition organized by FISA The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillan ...

and

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

, joining the other top four finishers

Debbie Flood Deborah Kirsty Bruwer (née Flood; born 27 February 1980) is an English rower, noteworthy for winning silver medals in the quadruple sculls at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games. Biography Flood was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire, and was a Grea ...

, Frances Houghton and

Rebecca Romero Rebecca Jayne Romero, MBE (born 24 January 1980) is an English sportswoman, a former World Champion and Olympic Games silver medallist at rowing, and a former World champion and an Olympic champion track cyclist. Early life and education Romer ...

. The quartet won gold in the first and third regattas and

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

at the Olympics.

Personal life

Mowbray graduated with

first-class honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

from the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

and completed her

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

in molecular biology at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, where she was a member of

Gonville and Caius College Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...

. After her second Boat Race, she put her rowing career on hold in order to finish her doctorate. In her autobiography ''Gold Medal Flapjack, Silver Medal Life'', Mowbray described herself as an "unlikely" Olympian who had grown up excelling in music rather than sports. She only took up rowing seriously while at university. Mowbray qualified as a teacher at Roehampton Institute and taught chemistry at

Wycombe High School Wycombe High School is a girls' grammar school in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire taking girls from the age of 11 to 18. The school became an academy in 2011, and in 2020 had 1,308 pupils. History The school was the first state grammar school for ...

. At the time of the 2004 Olympics, she was the second schoolteacher in Team GB to earn a medal at the games.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mowbray, Alison English female rowers English Olympic medallists British female rowers 1971 births Living people Sportspeople from Derby Olympic rowers of Great Britain Rowers at the 2000 Summer Olympics Rowers at the 2004 Summer Olympics Olympic medalists in rowing Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Olympic silver medallists for Great Britain