News
Pride at Paris Olympics 2024 for Winning Students 100 scholars and alumni
22 August 2024
They gave it everything in Paris and more, and we’d like to celebrate the achievements of all the Team GB Olympic athletes who have been supported by Winning Students 100.
An incredible 15 of Team GB’s 34 Scots competing at the Paris Olympics 2024 have been backed by Winning Students 100 whether past or present, as well as one English-born athlete, and all return home as heroes and with experiences to cherish forever.
When the Paris Olympics 2024 drew to a close, Team GB had amassed some 65 medals, one more than Tokyo and the third most of any competing nation at the Games, ensuring a seventh placed finish overall based on golds (14).
As the application window for the next wave of Winning Students 100 remains open until September 13, let’s take a look at the heights reached by the class of Paris Olympics 2024.
In the pool
In swimming, Duncan Scott MBE led from the front, adding another gold and silver to his glittering collection of medals, to become the most decorated British Olympian swimmer of all time. His gold in the 4x200m freestyle relay and silver in the 200m individual medley means Scott has now accumulated eight Olympic medals across three Games, meaning only Jason Kenny of all British Olympians in history has won more (nine).
Elsewhere in the pool, Katie Shanahan enjoyed a brilliant Olympic Games debut, qualifying for two finals in the 200m backstroke and 400m individual medley where she enjoyed fifth and seventh-placed finishes respectively, the former with a time just outside the Scottish record. Keanna McInnes, who trains with Katie in Stirling, also performed strongly on debut, just missing out on qualifying for the 200m butterfly final.
Kathleen Dawson helped the Team GB mixed medley relay team to the final where they achieved a seventh-place finish, behind winners USA who broke the world record on their way to gold. And Lucy Hope was part of the 4x200m freestyle women’s relay team that finished their Paris Olympics 2024 final in an impressive fifth place.
In diving, Grace Reid placed inside the top 10 of the Women’s 3m Springboard final following three days of tough competition, a superb performance in her third consecutive Games and second Olympic final.
On the track
Laura Muir achieved a career-high in the women’s 1500m final on Saturday, recording a personal best and new Scottish record (3:53:37) on her way to a fifth-place finish in what was a world-class field.
Around 24 hours earlier both Eilish McColgan and Megan Keith competed in the women’s 10,000m final and their emotional embrace at the finish line provided an enduring image of the Games. For Eilish it was a commendable return following her recent return from injury while Megan became the first athlete from Inverness to represent Team GB in athletics at an Olympic Games.
On the field
The Team GB women’s hockey team made it to the quarter-finals before losing 3-1 to eventual finalists The Netherlands. Sarah Robertson and Charlotte Watson both contributed to that run to the last eight, with Sarah earning her 100th Team GB appearance during the victory over Argentina which took them to the last eight, a milestone recognised with a special presentation by Sir Andy Murray.
The men’s hockey team also exited competition at the same stage but that was not for any lack of effort including from Lee Morton. Lee netted three times during the team’s Paris journey, including an equaliser in the quarter-final against India before an agonising loss on a shootout.
And elsewhere
In indoor cycling, Neah Evans and teammate Elinor Barker stormed to a silver medal in the women’s madison, in what was described as a “chaotic” 120-lap race, a distance of some 30km. The pair are the reigning world champions and showed their class in the closing stages, all the more impressive an achievement for Evans in particular after recovering from serious injury and illness over the past 18 months.
On the water, English-born rower Oli Wilkes won the bronze medal with David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Freddie Davidson in the Men’s four at the 2024 Olympic Rowing Regatta in Paris, a further vindication of his decision to pursue rowing rather than swimming, having competed with Adam Peaty in his university days.
Meanwhile Kirsty Gilmour hailed her third Olympic Games as her “best ever experience”, winning her opening badminton singles match before exiting at the group stage in the face of tough competition. She earned a comfortable two-set win over Azerbaijan's Keisha Fatimah Azzahra before losing out to China’s He Bingjiao who went on to take the women’s singles silver medal.
And finally, Seonaid McIntosh was unable to build on a superb 2024 after just failing to make the cut to make the Olympic final in the 50m three position rifle event, finishing in 12th with just the top eight making it through. The first British woman to be ranked No.1 in the world for the 50m rifle three position event, Seonaid also competed in the women’s 10m air rifle and the mixed team 10m rifle events.
Inspired? The Winning Students 100 application window for 2024/25 is now OPEN!
Congratulations from everyone at Winning Students, sportscotland, Scottish Funding Council and all supporting universities and colleges to every scholar and alumni who competed so brilliantly at Paris Olympics 2024.
If you’ve been inspired by the class of 2024, you can follow in their footsteps as the application window for Winning Students 100 funding during 2024/25 is now open.
For more information, including how to apply, simply click Apply Now at the top of the Winning Students website: https://www.winningstudents-scotland.ac.uk/