Frances Houghton is the longest serving member of the GB rowing team, having made her first appearance as a junior in 1995.
She started rowing at the Dragon School in Oxford, aged 11, before moving on to The Kings School, Canterbury. At the 1996 World Rowing Junior Championships, aged just 15, she finished fourth in the GB women's quad. Two years later she sculled in the junior double with Debbie Flood at the World Juniors where she won a bronze medal - the first time Britain had ever won a junior women's sculling medal.
Frances is also an accomplished indoor rower, having been the first junior girl to break both the 7 minute and then the 6 minute 50 seconds barriers. In 1998 she won the junior title at the British Indoor Rowing Championships, setting a new British record in the process, and then travelled to Boston, USA, returning as World Junior Indoor Rowing Champion.
In 1999 she debuted at the World Rowing U23 Championships, where she once again partnered Debbie Flood in the double scull, in which they won the gold medal - the first sculling gold for GB at this level.
At the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 Frances finished ninth in the double scull, partnered by Sarah Winckless. At the World Championships in Lucerne the following year she once again sculled in the double with Debbie Flood (as well as doubling up together in the eight), and they improved to 4th place in the double at the 2002 World Championships in Seville.
In 2003 Frances raced in the quadruple scull, narrowly missing a medal at the World Championships in Milan, where he crew finished in 4th place, to secure a qualifying place for the Athens Olympics.
In Athens her quad won the Olympic silver medal after a season in which the crew had won the World Cup events in both Poznan and Lucerne, where they were the first British women's quad to beat the Germans in this event.
Unbeaten at GB senior trials between 2000 and 2004 Frances went on to race in the women's quad all season in 2005, when her crew won two World Cup gold medals, at Eton and Munich, followed by silver in Lucerne, and capped the season with her first senior world title in the quad in Japan.
The following year brought further success with a trio of gold medals at Poznan, Munich and Lucerne. But the World Championships in Eton the quad was beaten to the line by Russia, who later failed a drugs test, allowing the gold medal to be restored to the GB crew some months after the regatta had taken place.
In 2007 Frances medalled at each of the World Cup regattas and won the overall title for the series, before becoming World Champion yet again in the quad in Munich.
She started the Olympic year in 2008 with gold in Munich and bronze in Lucerne, before being selected in the women's quad for Beijing where she won her second Olympic silver medal. The British boat had led the race until the final 200 metres when they were agonizingly overhauled by China.
After Beijing Frances contemplated hanging up her sculls for good, but after a year out of sport, when she fulfilled her passion for cookery, she realised that she still wanted another chance to race for a medal.
Back in the quad for 2010 Frances and her crewmates contested the 2010 World Championships on New Zealand's Lake Karapiro ,where they won another superb gold medal.
2011 kicked off with the first World Cup regatta in Munich where Frances raced in the women's quad which took the bronze medal. Injury forced a withdrawal from Lucerne, and at the World Championships in Bled, Slovenia, Frances finished 10th in the single scull.
Link to biography on British Rowing website
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