Tom James (rower)
British rower
Thomas James MBE (born 11 March 1984) is a British rower, twice Olympic champion and victorious Cambridge Blue. In a British coxless four in 2012 he set a world's best time which still stood as of 2021.
Background and early life
James was born in Cardiff and spent part of his childhood in Berlin, Germany as his father was an officer in the British Army, but considers his hometown to be the village of Coedpoeth, near Wrexham.
James was educated at Packwood Haugh School near Ruyton-XI-Towns, and then at The King's School, Chester. He was a keen sportsman and played football and rugby before being diagnosed with Osgood–Schlatter disease, forcing him to switch to rowing instead. While at King's, he was schoolmates and shared a boat with fellow Olympian Chris Bartley. He went up to Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 2002, obtaining his undergraduate degree in engineering in 2007.
Rowing career
The Boat Race
Whilst at Cambridge University, James was a member of Cambridge University Boat Club (CUBC) and took part in The Boat Race four times in five years between 2003 and 2007 (taking a year off to train for the 2004 Summer Olympics). He was elected president of CUBC for the 2006–07 academic year.
Having concentrated his efforts on the Olympics in 2004, James returned to Cambridge in 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tom James (rower)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.