Team GB Athletes Return Home With 14 Gold Medals

Team GB gold medal Olympians Bryony Page (L) and Alex Yee (R) in the closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, on Aug. 11, 2024. (PR Newswire)

Team GB athletes will return home from the Paris 2024 Olympics with 14 gold medals, 22 silver, and 29 bronze, putting the UK in seventh place in the medals table.

The UK won their highest number of gold medals in any one sport in rowing, gaining three across men’s and women’s categories. Team GB won 11 more golds in events including athletics, equestrian events, shooting, and swimming.

Athletes also saw success in newer sports that had been added to the games, including taekwondo, trampolining, and skateboarding, with Team GB winning its first-ever medals in sport climbing.

Despite securing a spot in the top 10 nations, the UK fell to its lowest position since finishing 10th at the Athens 2004 games and won eight fewer gold medals than it had at the Tokyo games in 2021.

Golds for Northern Ireland

Team GB’s women’s quadruple sculls crew, featuring rowers Lola Anderson, Georgie Brayshaw, Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott, won gold on July 31 in a dramatic photo finish race, putting the Netherlands in second place with silver.

Scott had brought home the third gold medal in 24 hours for Northern Ireland, after swimmers Daniel Wiffen and Jack McMillan won their own gold medals in the men’s 800m freestyle and 200m freestyle, respectively.

Speaking to PA news agency from Paris, Hannah Scott’s mother Sharon said, “It was just fabulous to see her coming across the line.”

“Feeling really proud we’re all really happy, there’s about 50 of us here,” she added.

The victories for the country represented the first time Northern Ireland had triumphed at the Olympics since Seoul in 1988, when Stephen Martin and Jimmy Kirkwood topped the podium as part of the UK’s winning hockey team.

Most Successful Olympic Triathlete

Alex Yee won gold in the men’s triathlon in Paris and picked up a bronze in the mixed relay. After winning individual silver and mixed relay gold in Tokyo in 2021, he is now the most successful Olympic triathlete ever.

Yee, 26, had been trailing New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde with over 20 seconds with 2.5 k.m. to go, but in the closing kilometre overtook Wilde to win the gold.

The Olympian said after his win, “I was going through a real bad patch and at 2.5km I thought I’m going to give myself one last chance and not give up and here we are. I’m still a bit lost for words.”

The 26 year old continued: “I was just saying ‘anything can happen.’ I’m still just that normal guy who works hard at my sport and loves what I’m doing. For me, it’s amazing that I can be in this position and I just believed it.

“I don’t even know if I thought I was going to win. For me, I wanted to cross that finish line knowing that I have given 100 percent.”

‘True Grit’

Yee, along with Bryony Page, who won a gold in gymnastics trampolining, were Team GB’s flagbearers for the Closing Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Sunday, which saw “Mission Impossible” star Tom Cruise descend into the Stade de France before greeting Olympians in the crowd.

After the games ended, celebrities, the prime minister, and members of the Royal Family sent their congratulations to Team GB.

King Charles III told competitors in a message: “Your achievements, across so many disciplines, were forged from that invaluable combination of raw talent, true grit and hard toil over many years, burnished these past weeks by sportsmanship and team spirit in the finest tradition of the Games.

“To those who missed out on the greatest prizes, you have most certainly not fallen short in the pride that you, too, have generated for your nations.”

The UK is already preparing for Los Angeles 2028, securing Stanford University as its preparation camp.

Meanwhile, the Paralympics is due to commence in Paris on August 28.

PA Media contributed to this report.