Celebrating Yorkshire Grit and the Olympic Spirit: Yorkshire at least 14th in the Olympics medal table

As well as Pidcock and Brayshaw, Alistair Brownlee, another Yorkshire hero, used a rallying cry that Yee said helped him to win the triathlon Gold yesterday.

As Yee suffered 29C heat and had one more 2.5km circuit to run and could see Hayden Wilde(NZ) 14 seconds ahead, Brownlee screamed

Yee said afterwards it amounted to "a moment of belief" and "Looking back now, it was pretty special". Over the next km, he only gained two seconds, but he managed to pass Wilde 400 metres from the end to win by six seconds.

Yorkshire grit

In 2024, Tom Pidcock overcame challenges such as Covid, a puncture, and a hostile French crowd to win a gold medal. Just two weeks after leaving the Tour de France early due to illness, the Yorkshireman showed remarkable resilience. He recovered from a flat tyre, bridged a 40-second gap, and won mountain bike gold in an inspiring comeback.

In 2021, he suffered a broken collarbone in a training crash just weeks before the Tokyo Olympics. Despite this setback, he made a fantastic recovery and won gold in the mountain biking event.

Tom competes at a high level in cyclo-cross, mountain biking, and road racing, requiring significant adaptability and resilience. Each discipline has its own demands, and balancing them can be challenging.

Georgina Brayshaw, who is from Leeds, was part of the British quadruple sculls team that narrowly won Olympic gold in a photo finish yesterday. The 30-year-old athlete has a crooked spine and one leg shorter than the other.

Be inspired

In an interview with The Times, July 20th, in the build-up to Paris, she explained her story, and I hope you will agree it is an inspirational read:

"This is a story about pain, the joy of it and how it can inspire. It involves disaster, triumph, a horse and nine days in a coma. From being paralysed to Paris, Georgie Brayshaw has already won. "You know if you're in pain you're giving your absolute all," says the world champion rower in her bouncy Yorkshire accent. "That's what you want out of this sport. You want to give part of your soul."

Brayshaw's status as an Olympian is good for the soul because it has taken a lot. She comes from Leeds and her "thing" was horses. Her parents bought her four lessons when she was seven and the equine life consumed her. "It was my whole world and I was obsessed," she says.

One day, aged 15, she was galloping through a field with some friends. Bliss. There was a road ahead and the others slowed. And then: "My horse was being a bit silly and didn't slow down. He galloped across the road. I managed to spin him when we got to the road — I don't remember this — and he slid over, with me on top. I fell on to the tarmac road. I was in a coma for nine days and when I woke up I was paralysed on my left side."

Brayshaw's memory of what came next has been pieced together by other people's recollections. They include the Air Ambulance rescuers who took her to hospital. "They didn't have much hope for me." Her parents have also told her enough snippets for her to add: "The doctor said, 'She's going to be here for a year, she's never going to walk again and will probably never feed herself again.'"

This ordinary family is clearly extraordinary. One thing they would do is play the board game Frustration with its dice encased in a plastic mould in the middle. "I was so dominant with my right hand that the rule was you could only use your left. Mum and Dad challenged me on a daily basis: 'You can't do that with your right hand.'"

She told her father she wanted a pink wheelchair for Christmas, but it was not needed. "I don't remember learning to walk again, but I remember learning how to run." Teachers at school told her to put one foot in front of the other as everyday actions became giant steps.

It took a near-tragedy to reveal her innate drive. Her school in Harrogate tried to be kind and told her she could resit the year, but that was anathema to a teen craving normality. "I didn't want to be different to anyone else," she says. "I was not going to let this dictate who I am. I wanted to get back to being the Georgie I was."

She was fed via tube for a while but defied the pessimism of that first prognosis. She walked within weeks and soon went back to riding. "The doctors said I needed to wait for maybe a year, but I was adamant," she says. "It wasn't the horse's fault. I went back after maybe a month. Someone else would ride the horse and when he was tired, I'd say, 'Can I get on now?'"

When she went to university in Northampton, her riding came to a sad halt. Instead, she signed up for a host of clubs. "I tried trampolining and nearly broke my neck. I tried lacrosse and got hit very hard in the face." She was not a natural netballer and did not click with sailing.

Resigned, she decided to have a "normal" first year, and then her dad suggested rowing. The university did not have any boats and used the local club. There was a programme called GB Start which was a talent ID exercise. You may think this is where the story's trajectory takes its natural turn into the elite, but she was not recruited. "I thought, 'Fine, rowing is maybe not for me.'"

Her mum's stroke meant her exams and extra-curricular dalliances were mothballed and she took time out. "Family is everything to me." Her mum recovered and Brayshaw went back to Leeds after finishing university. "I was getting a little bit chubby and thought I'd go to the local rowing club." She tried out for GB Start again. This time she got picked.

Now 30, she has been in the GB squad only since 2022 and her main memory of winning gold in the quad sculls at the World Championships last year was of the joy of others. "Mum and Dad were there and were crying," she says. "It was nice to see how much it meant to them. It gave me loads of belief that I can be the best in the world. It's crazy. It's quite unbelievable really. I'm just Georgie from Leeds. I have to pinch myself."

She lets The Times spend a day with her to see what goes into fuelling a dream. She gets up at 5.30am and her partner, Ashley, does the same. "He doesn't start work until 9am, but he's super supportive." She is at the GB rowing base in Caversham for 6.45am. Martin, the chef, makes breakfast. "Normally three poached eggs, a bagel, sausages, tomatoes and beans." She needs about 4,500 calories a day, more if on a training camp.

They do three sessions a day, indoor, outdoor and in the gym. Today was a light 16 kilometres on the water, "like jogging". There are meetings with coaches, analysis and recovery sessions. "It's quite full-on," she says with some understatement....

Paris now consumes her. Every session, race, meal and sleep. She is the world record holder for five kilometres on the RP3 rowing machine, a world and European champion. When we spoke after the crew had been beaten in a race, she talked about how they could not let it fester and needed to heed the lesson of making the first few strokes count.

Brayshaw was never an Olympic nerd. Her family was not sporty and the Olympics would murmur in the background when she was growing up. Only the showjumping captivated her. "I used to feel athletes were superhuman," she says. "But actually they are just humans doing something really well. I honestly believe anyone can do it if you put your mind to it."

That may be generous to the nation's sofa dwellers, but one thing that is indisputable is that the scullers will leave nothing in the tank. "When I started I'd think I had nothing left to give," she says. "But until you can't move you can always give more. My coach always says when you get to the last 250 metres you have to be desperate. That's where your soul goes into the boat."

After years of toil in the quest for fractions, Brayshaw and her soulmates are ready."

And yesterday, they proved the fractions were critical, winning by 0.15 seconds.

Conclusion

I always love and watch the Olympics more than I think I will, and I think we can all take lessons from it:

• Surround yourself with people who believe in you and will cheer you on when the going gets tough
• Believe you can do it and enjoy it - success comes from passion
• Success comes from working hard and is more rewarding for the setbacks

I was also inspired by Ni Xialian despite only winning one match. At 61 she became the oldest player to win an Olympic table tennis match. Her zest for life and fun, and her success, are based on being surrounded by love.

Here are some more blogs you might find interesting:

Six strategic lessons we can all learn from the Olympics

Inspiring a generation - should it read generations?

Who is going to inspire us the most over the next 17 days? Getting high on new inspiration