| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Naomi Joy Riches | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | British | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 15 June 1983 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country |  United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Adaptive rowing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Naomi Joy Riches [1] MBE, DL (born on 15 June 1983) is a British adaptive rower who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics and a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics.
Riches was born on 15 June 1983 in Hammersmith, London, England. [2] She attended Cannon Lane school as a child. She is registered blind and is classified for competition in the B3 category. [3] [4] She competed for Harrow in the London Youth Games as a disability swimmer. [5] At the age of 12 she was a National Disabled Swimming champion. [2]
She attended the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) College in Worcester. [2] She graduated from Buckinghamshire New University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in metalwork and jewellery design. [2] [6]
Riches currently works for a psychometric assessment provider as a sport and education consultant. [7]
Riches took up rowing whilst at the RNIB College in Worcester. [2] She competes in the legs, trunks and arms adaptive mixed coxed four (LTAMix4+) event. She won gold medals in the event at the 2004, 2005 and 2006 World Rowing Championships and won silver in 2007. [8]
She was selected to represent Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Paralympics held in Beijing, China, as rowing made its debut at the Games. Competing with Alastair McKean, Vicki Hansford, and James Morgan, along with cox Alan Sherman she won a bronze medal in the mixed coxed four. [3] [9]
Riches won a further world title in 2009, alongside Hansford, David Smith, James Roe and cox Rhiannon Jones. [10] At the 2010 World Championships she won a silver medal competing with Smith, Roe, Ryan Chamberlain and Jones. [11] He[ who? ] is visually impaired. [2]
In 2011, she competed at the World Rowing Championships held at Lake Bled, Bled, Slovenia. She won the gold medal in the LTAMix4+ event alongside crewmates Pam Relph, David Smith, James Roe and Lily van den Broecke, the cox. [2] [12] They completed the one kilometre course in a time of three minutes, 27.10 seconds, finishing nearly five seconds ahead of the second placed Canadian boat. The result qualified a boat for Great Britain into the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. [13] The crew repeated their gold medal result at the Munich World Cup event in 2012. [2]
Riches was selected along with Relph, Smith, Roe and van den Broeke, to represent Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in the mixed coxed four event. [14] The event took place between 31 August and 2 September at Eton Dorney, [15] and the GB crew won the gold medal.
She was inducted into the London Youth Games Hall of Fame in 2012.
Riches was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to rowing. [16] [17]
In 2016, she became the first woman to row the length of the River Thames. [18] She completed this in less than 48 hours, as she had hoped (six seconds less exactly). [18]
Danielle Brown MBE is a British competitive archer and award winning children's author. She has competed in the Paralympic Games winning gold medals in Beijing and London and has also won medals shooting in the able bodied category including the Commonwealth Games.
Sophie Hannah Marguerite Hosking MBE is a retired British rower.
Great Britain competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012 as the host nation. A total of 288 athletes were selected to compete along with 13 other team members such as sighted guides. The country finished third in the medals table, behind China and Russia, winning 120 medals in total; 34 gold, 43 silver and 43 bronze. Multiple medallists included cyclist Sarah Storey and wheelchair athlete David Weir, who won four gold medals each, and swimmer Stephanie Millward who won a total of five medals. Storey also became the British athlete with the most overall medals, 22, and equal-most gold medals, 11, in Paralympic Games history.
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.
Pamela Lillian Relph MBE is a British adaptive rower who won gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Paralympics, thus becoming the first double gold medallist in Paralympic rowing.
James Roe MBE is a British adaptive rower. He was part of the mixed coxed team that won gold at both the 2011 World Rowing Championships and the 2012 Summer Paralympics.
David Smith MBE is a British adaptive rower who won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics.
Lily Jacoba van den Broecke is a British rower who competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics as the coxswain in the mixed coxed four for Great Britain, and won the gold medal.
Bethany Charlotte Firth, is a Northern Irish Paralympic swimmer. Since 2014 she has competed for Great Britain; previously, Firth had represented Ireland. A six time Paralympic gold medalist, she has won gold in her specialist event - the 100 metres backstroke - for both Ireland at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and Great Britain at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Paralympics. These were in addition to the Mixed 4 x 100 metres freestyle relay S14 at the 2020 Games, and 200 metres medley and 200 metres freestyle for Great Britain at the 2016 Games, where she was the nation's most successful Paralympian with three golds and a silver medal. She competes in the S14 classification for athletes with an intellectual impairment.
Jeremy McGrath is an Australian Paralympic rower. He represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
Kathleen Murdoch is an Australian Paralympic rower. She represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
Josephine "Jo" Burnand is an Australian rowing coxswain. She represented Australia at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
Zimbabwe sent six athletes across two different sports to the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016.
Lauren Rachel Catherine Rowles, 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.
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.
Erin Kennedy is a British Paralympic coxswain with the GB Rowing Team. Erin is a three time World Champion, three time European Champion and World Best Time holder in the PR3 Mixed coxed four. She has won every international competition and is the first and only coxswain to ever hold the Paralympic, World and European titles at the same time.
Giedrė Rakauskaitė is a British Paralympic rower who is a triple World champion in the mixed coxed four.
Oliver "Ollie" Stanhope is a British Paralympic rower who competes in the coxed four in international level events. He is the son of former rower Richard Stanhope.
Daniel Brown MBE is a retired British pararower who competed at international-level events. He is a Paralympic champion, a triple world champion and a double world cup champion in the mixed coxed four with Grace Clough, Pam Relph, James Fox and Oliver James.
