Debbie Flood

Debbie was selected in the women's quadruple scull for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and won a silver medal.  

Debbie was an Olympic silver medallist in the women's quad in 2004 and 2008 and World Champion in 2006 and 2007. In 2007 in the quad she won two golds and a silver in the World Cup series and won the overall quad title for the series. She raced in the quad in the 2008 World Cup series, finishing 1st and 3rd.

Debbie was a GB junior judo international and a county level 1500m and cross–country runner and shot–putter before she took up rowing and her strength and athletic ability ensured rapid progress. She won the Junior title at the 1997 British Indoor Rowing Championships and the 1998 World Indoor Rowing Championships and then took the Under 23 title at the British Indoor Rowing Championships in 1999.

Her international rowing career began with a bronze in the double scull with Frances Houghton at the World Junior Rowing Championships in 1998 and the following year they made an impressive Under 23 debut, winning gold at the World U23 Championships in Hamburg.

In 2000 Debbie also won gold at the World U23 Championships this time in the single. She gained her first senior vest in 2001, finishing 7th in the double scull and 6th in the eight at the World Championships.

In 2002 she won the World Cup series in the double scull also with Frances Houghton after victories at Hazewinkel and Lucerne, and finished 4th at the World Championships in Seville.

The following season Debbie raced with Rebecca Romero in the double throughout the season culminating in a 4th place at the World Championships in Milan.

In 2004 Debbie raced in the women's quad. In the Olympic Games in Athens they qualified for the final by winning their heat and although they were unable to catch the fast–starting Germans they came through the field in great style to win an emphatic silver medal.

Debbie raced for much of the 2005 season in a double scull with Elise Laverick, winning a bronze at the World Cup in Lucerne and finishing 5th in the World Championships in Japan.

The World Cup in 2006 brought gold with the women's quad in each of Poznan, Munich and Lucerne.

At the 2006 World Championships the women's quadruple scull fought an intense battle with Russia and were just beaten to the line in the dying metres of the race to take silver. In a strange twist of fate, their Russian conquerors later fell foul of a drugs test and the British women's quartet were restored, in February 2007, as rightful world champions once more.

Originally from Harrogate, Debbie moved south to study Physiology and Biochemistry at Reading University, from where she graduated in 2005. She is currently living and training at Henley on Thames and is vice captain of Leander Rowing Club.

Debbie is a committed Christian and in her spare time enjoys giving dinner parties for her friends and rowing team mates in Henley. She is also learning Chinese in preparation for the Beijing Olympics.

Debbie is Lottery Funded through UK Sport and sponsored by Camelot.