Jess Leyden and Georgie Brayshaw hail British Rowing coach Andrew Randell after European gold and World Championship bronze

Jess Leyden of Todmorden and Georgie Brayshaw of Harrogate won bronze medals as part of the women’s quad sculls at the World Championships in the Czech Republic at the weekend.

It was a regatta the British Olympic and para team dominated winning 12 medals, seven of them gold, as they topped the table a little over a year after departing the Tokyo Olympics with just two medals and their reputation in tatters.

But Leyden and Brayshaw, two Yorkshire team-mates at different stages of their career, helped turn the tide and both attributed the change in form to Andrew Randall, who has been credited with unwinding Jurgen Grobler’s ergometer-heavy European style and importing a southern hemisphere style that prioritises work on the water over dry land.

"British Rowing underwent a bit of an overhaul; staff changes, performance director change," says Brayshaw, 28, who along with her quad sculls crew also won gold at the European Championships this summer.

“With the pandemic it had got a bit messy. But Louise Kingsley came in as performance director and really sorted it out. The biggest impact was the new head coach for women, Andrew Randall.”

Randall took the women’s team away from the 2km lake at Caversham in Berkshire and gave them a 5km stretch of river to train on at Longridge in Marlow, which reduces the number of times their heart-rate drops while turning the boat around.

"We hated it at first because it’s so tough and we were all in deep, dark holes for most of the winter,” Brayshaw tells The Yorkshire Post.

"I was even questioning whether this was what I wanted to do because I was so miserable, but it’s worked.

"The 5k is better for fitness and endurance work and it’s given me so much confidence that when I go back into that hole over the winter, I’ll know that when I’m grinding away it really does work.”

For Leyden, the hard work and commitment Randall demands of the women’s team is matched by his compassion and understanding.

Leyden, 27, has been in the British Rowing programme a lot longer than her Yorkshire team-mate, and has seen many ups and downs during a turbulent period.

Leyden was part of the quad sculls boat that failed to qualify for the Rio Olympics six years ago, and then after rectifying that in the next Olympic cycle, she couldn’t take her place in the boat because she contracted Covid so bad at Christmas 2020 that “I couldn’t even wash the pots”.

So after writing off Tokyo to concentrate on recovering, she got a job at an engineering firm near the squad’s Caversham base, juggling that with studying for a degree in engineering and her rowing career.

All of which Randall supported.

"When I first came here the training programme was tough, but when management started to leave the training programme wasn’t as good,” says Leyden of the need for positive change.

"Now it’s got back to those high standards. We’re racing each other all the time which is different, using each other and pushing each other on internally.

"It’s a really good support system and Andrew is really supportive in wanting us to enjoy it and have a good balance with work. He’s supported me doing a part-time job because he knows that’s good for me.

"And I’ve really enjoyed balancing that with the rowing as well.”

Leyden has been in the programme for nearly a decade, winning the single sculls world junior title in 2013 and her first world senior medal in Sarasota in 2017.

Brayshaw was only a year into a serious rowing career by that stage.

A horse rider in her youth, she first stepped in a boat during her second year of studying at the University of Northampton, but that was short-lived.

"I finished university and I needed a bit of a hobby so I started again at Leeds Rowing Club,” says Brayshaw.

"I tried out for GB Start at Manchester, I did six months there and then came back to Leeds to live with my mum and dad when Start centre opened in York.

"People normally start rowing when they’re at school. Where I went to at St John Fisher in Harrogate there was no rowing.

“It was my dad who initially suggested I give it a go. And in the past six years my career has rocketed. It was great for me that both he and my mum were there in the Czech Republic at the weekend.

"We had a good race but the Chinese and the Dutch were just quicker on the day.

"But a world championship medal and a European title is pretty good – medals don’t grow on trees.”

Leyden adds: “We’ve come a long way. If you’d have offered us this at the beginning of the year we’d have taken it. I’m sure teams will come back fighting, so nothing is assured.”