Lieutenant Peter Reed RN, a former Oxford Blue, is the reigning Olympic champion in men’s fours, having won gold in Beijing in 2008 in a thrilling race ahead of Australia and France. He was appointed MBE in the 2009 New Year’s Honours list in recognition of his achievement.
Pete Reed was a late entrant to rowing, having first learned to row at the University of the West of England in 2002. Whilst at UWE he was selected for the GB coxed four in the World U23 Championships in Belgrade in 2003, just missing a medal after his crew finished 4th in the final.
After narrowly missing Olympic selection in 2004 Pete stormed into contention for the top men's boat in 2005 by winning GB Senior Trials partnered by Andy Triggs-Hodge in the pair. Both had recently won the Boat Race with Oxford and their success brought them selection for the new GB men's four with Alex Partridge and Steve Williams. After winning gold at every one of the three World Cup regattas the crew went on to cap the season with the world title in Japan.
The following year brought further success with three more successive golds in Munich, Poznan and Lucerne. The season reached its climax at the World Championships in Eton where, in front of their home crowd, the crew retained the World Championship title and established an unbeaten run of 24 successive race.
Despite winning GB Senior Trials for the third succcessive year Pete and his crew had a disappointing World Championships when they finished 4th in Munich.
With the Olympic Games looming the early part of 2008 brought further changes in the GB men's four, and the new look line-up, with Pete in the 3 seat, emerged as the crew to beat. All three medallists from 2007 were eliminated in the semifinals, but Australia led the final until GB came right back with 250m to go, and Pete and his crew became Olympic champions.
At the start of 2009 chief coach Jurgen Grobler put Reed and Triggs-Hodge into the men's pair - the event in which they had won successive GB trials. The new combination won gold at the opening regatta of the seaosn but in Munich they came up against Eric Murray and Hamish Bond - the New Zealand partnership who were to dominate the next three seasons. The Kiwis won Munich and Lucerne, followed by the world title in Poznan where the winning time was just one second outside Pinsent and Cracknell's world best time,
established in Seville in 2002.
It was a similar story in 2010 where Pete and his partner came up against the Kiwis in the final, this time in front of their home crowd on Lake Karapiro. The GB men pushed the world champions hard, eventually holding on to silver just 0.3 sec astern of Murray and Bond.
Another showdown provided one of the highlights of the competition on Lake Bled a year later. The two best pairs in the world fought it out once more, but yet again the Kiwis emerged victorious, leaving the British pair with their third successive silver medal.
Link to biography on British Rowing website
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