Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Born | 24 April 1998 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 172 cm (5 ft 8 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 56 kg (123 lb) [1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Athletics (2012–14) Rowing (2015–present) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Disability class | T54 (athletics) PR2 (rowing) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Lauren Rachel Catherine Rowles (born 24 April 1998) is a British parasport rower and former wheelchair athlete. She won gold with Laurence Whiteley in the trunk-arms mixed double sculls (TAMix2x) at the 2016 Summer Paralympics.The pair repeated their achievement in Tokyo at the 2021 Summer Paralympics.
Rowles, who is from Cofton Hackett, Bromsgrove District, attended North Bromsgrove High School. [2] At the age of 13 she suddenly developed transverse myelitis (a condition in which the spinal cord is inflamed), which left her with no feeling below her chest. [3] She decided to take up Paralympic sport while watching coverage of the 2012 Summer Paralympics during a stay in Stoke Mandeville Spinal Injuries Unit. [4]
Rowles completed her A-levels at King Edward VI College, Stourbridge, [5] and is currently studying law at Oxford Brookes University. [4] She is openly gay. [6] Rowles is engaged to Jude, a wheelchair basketball player. [7]
Rowles competed as a wheelchair racer before switching to rowing. She took up the sport in November 2012 and competed in T54 events. [2] In 2014, she was the England under-16s champion at 100 m, 200 m and 1,500 m. She represented England at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, [8] where she was the youngest track and field athlete in the England team at the age of 16. [2] She reached the final of the T54 1500 m, finishing ninth. [9]
Rowles took up rowing in early 2015. [10] She quickly teamed up with Laurence Whiteley, who had been searching for a suitable partner to compete with for over two years. [11] They competed at the 2015 World Rowing Championships, winning the silver medal in the trunk-arms mixed double sculls. [10] She and Whiteley competed at their first Paralympics in 2016, where they set a world record in the heats, [12] and won gold in the final. [13]
Rowles was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours [14] and Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2025 New Year Honours for services to rowing.
Anna Rose Watkins is a British rower.
Madison de Rozario, is an Australian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair racer who specialises in middle and long-distance events. She competed at the 2008 Beijing, 2012 London, 2016 Rio, 2020 Tokyo and 2024 Paris Paralympics, winning two gold, four silver and two bronze medals. She has also won ten medals at the World Para Athletics Championships and four gold at the Commonwealth Games. De Rozario holds the world record in the Women's 800m T53 and formerly in the Women's 1500m T53/54.
Rachel Morris is a British Paralympic sportswoman who has won Paralympic gold medals in both cycling and rowing. She took a gold medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics as a handcyclist, and eight years later at Rio she won gold in the women's single sculls as a rower.
Gavin Bellis is an Australian Paralympic rower. He represented Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in rowing and with Kathryn Ross won gold medals at the 2013, 2014 and 2015 World Rowing Championships. He partnered Ross at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
Erik Horrie is an Australian wheelchair basketball player and a five-time world champion rower. He was a member of the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team. Switching to rowing in 2011, he made an immediate impact in the sport, first winning the NSW State Rowing Championships and then the National Rowing Championships in Adelaide. He has won silver medals at the 2012, 2016, 2020 Summer Paralympics and a bronze at the 2024 Summer Paralympics. He won gold medals at the 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018 World Rowing Championships. Horrie has selected for the 2024 Paris Paralympics - his fourth Games.
Hannah Lucy Cockroft is a British wheelchair racer specialising in sprint distances in the T34 classification and TV presenter.
LTA-PD is an adaptive rowing classification for people with physical disabilities that was developed in March 2011. It includes people with spinal cord injuries generally at around the S1 level. It also includes people with cerebral palsy. People in this class have issues with their legs, arms and trunk.
James Roberts MBE is a wheelchair basketball player and Paralympic athlete based in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales. Roberts was born with a disability called femoral dysplasia. He started out in his sporting career as a swimmer, and progressed on to other Paralympic sports, such as rowing and sitting volleyball. He competed for Great Britain at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, finishing fifth in the trunk and arm classification in adaptive rowing. He also competed for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, finishing 8th in the sitting volleyball. More recently he has begun playing wheelchair basketball for local side Rhyl Raptors.
Samantha May Kinghorn is a British World Champion wheelchair racer and TV presenter. At the 2024 paralympics she won a gold medal.
Great Britain and Northern Ireland competed, under the name Great Britain, at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016. The first places for which the team qualified were for six athletes in sailing events.
Moran Samuel is an Israeli paralympic basketball player and world champion rower. She was chosen to light a ceremonial torch on Israel's Independence Day in 2019. She represented Israel at the 2020 Summer Paralympics. She won a gold medal competing for Israel at the 2024 Paris Paralympics in the Women's single sculls.
Sandra Khumalo is a South African rower who competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and has qualified for the 2016 Games.
Jacqueline "Jacqui" Kapinowski is a two-time American Paralympian who competed in wheelchair curling at the 2010 Winter Paralympics and in rowing at the 2016 Summer Paralympics.
Angela Madsen was an American Paralympian sportswoman in both rowing and track and field. In a long career, Madsen moved from race rowing to ocean challenges before switching in 2011 to athletics, winning a bronze medal in the shot put at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. Madsen and teammate Helen Taylor were the first women to row across the Indian Ocean. She died in June 2020 while attempting a solo row from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
Judith Hamer is a 4.0 point British wheelchair basketball player who represented Great Britain at the 2012 and 2016 Paralympic Games. She won a Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Award for bravery and trekked across the Andes Mountains in Ecuador as part of a reality television show, Beyond Boundaries.
Laurence Whiteley is a British parasport rower. He won gold with Lauren Rowles in the trunk-arms mixed double sculls (TAMix2x) at the 2016 Summer Paralympics.
Grace Elizabeth Sorrel Clough is a former British Paralympic rower who competed in the mixed coxed four event. She won multiple gold medals at the World Rowing Championships and World Rowing Cup alongside a gold at the 2016 Summer Paralympics. Clough was inducted into the Sheffield Legends Walk of Fame in 2016 and named a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2017.
Melanie Woods is a Scottish teacher and wheelchair racer who competed at the postponed 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo. She was fifth in the 800m (T54).
Nathan Maguire is a British wheelchair racer. He won multiple medals at both the 2018 and 2021 World Para Athletics European Championships, and also won the 400 metres mixed class race at multiple British Athletics Championships. Maguire competed in the 4 × 400 metres relay T53/T54 at the 2016 Summer Paralympics, and competed in the 400 metres T54, 800 metres T54 and mixed 4 × 100 metres relay events at the delayed 2020 Summer Paralympics. He was part of the British team that won a silver medal in the 2020 Paralympic mixed 4 × 100 metres relay. He also competed for England at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and won the 1500 metres T54 event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.