Georgie Brayshaw: 'How my Vauxhall Corsa set me on the road from Yorkshire to an Olympic gold medal in Paris'

“I had just been accepted on a Start programme and it was good to have a car to get to training,” she said.

The GB Start programme was for promising rowers and she quickly showed an aptitude for the sport culminating in winning a gold medal at the Paris Olympics last year.

The 31-year-old – who recently received an MBE from the Princess Royal – said she enjoys driving.

“It’s a long drive from Oxfordshire to my parents home near Whitby but I don’t mind it.”

Georgie, who plans to marry partner Ashley in May, said she has moved on from the Corsa and now has a Toyota Yaris Cross which she enjoys very much.

Georgie was raised in Pool-in-Wharfedale and was a keen equestrian as a teenager but suffered serious head injuries in an accident at 15.

She had not considered rowing as a competitive sport until she came across it by chance at Northampton.

She will have fellows rowers Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott and Lola Anderson as bridesmaids alongside her when she marries at The Cove at the Secret Fisherman’s Chapel, Robin Hoods Bay, on Sunday May 5.

Her father Bob Brayshaw, who has retired to run a sheep farm between Whitby and Hawsker, said he was “delighted”.

Georgie became World Champion in 2023 in the Women’s quad – the first time GB has won gold in that boat class since 2010.

At Paris 2024, Georgie won GB’s first ever Olympic gold medal in the Women’s quadruple sculls.