Heather Stanning

She held the rank of Captain and served in 32nd Regiment Royal Artillery.

Heather Mary Stanning OBE (born 26 January 1985) is a retired British professional rower, a member of the Great Britain Rowing Team, and Royal Artillery officer.

Whilst in sixth form she won a British Army scholarship and went on to study sports technology at the University of Bath, England, she started rowing in 2006 under the Team GB Start Programme.

In 2006 Stanning started rowing and was selected for Team GB "Start" programme where she was coached by Paul Stannard.

She graduated from University in 2007 before going on to Sandhurst alongside her brother, Martin, who joined the Black Watch.

Another brother, Alistair, is a Navy doctor.

In 2007, she partnered Olivia Whitlam to win the women's pair competition at the World Rowing U23 Championships.

Stanning was commissioned from Sandhurst into the Royal Artillery in August 2008, based at Larkhill Garrison on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.

In 2008, she won the Remenham Challenge Cup for women's eights at the Henley Royal Regatta.

In 2009, she tried out for TeamGB and joined the crew of the women's eight with Victoria Bryant, Ruth Walczak, Victoria Meyer-Laker, Monica Relph, Jaqueline Round, Leonora Kennedy, Rachael Jefferies and Zoe de Toledo.

They finished seventh at the European Rowing Championships held in Brest, Belarus.

Stanning was given leave from the army in 2010 to train for Olympic competition and was paired with Helen Glover in the women's coxless pair.

At the 2010 World Rowing Cup they finished 9th in Bled and 5th in Munich, but were unable to race at Lucerne due to Glover's illness.

In July Glover and Stanning started to be coached by Robin Williams.

They improved so rapidly that at the 2010 World Rowing Championships at Lake Karapiro in New Zealand in November they won a silver medal behind Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown of New Zealand.

In 2011 Glover and Stanning won the coxless pair event at the GB Rowing Team Senior Trials at Eton-Dorney with a time of 7 minutes 15 seconds.

They went on to win both the Munich and Lucerne World Rowing Cup regattas, beating the reigning world champions Haigh and Scown of New Zealand.

Great Britain did not enter round 2 of the World Cup in Hamburg due to an E. coli outbreak in the area.

Glover and Stanning finished second in the 2011 World Rowing Championships at Lake Bled, Slovenia, 0.1 seconds behind the winning New Zealand crew of Haigh and Scown, despite both getting a stomach bug when they arrived in Slovenia.

Their coach Robin Williams described it as a gold medal performance without getting the gold medal.

She is a British Army officer and currently holds the rank of Major, in the Royal Artillery but had been given dispensation from the army to pursue an Olympic career with the British team at both the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Paired with Helen Glover in 2012, she won an Olympic gold medal, the first for their country of the 2012 Olympiad and the first ever British Olympic gold medal in women's rowing.

In 2012 Glover and Stanning completed a clean sweep of all three events in the women's coxless pair of the World Rowing Cup.

Winning gold at Belgrade Sava, Serbia; Lucerne Rotsee, Switzerland; and Munich Oberschleissheim, Germany.

On 1 August 2012 Glover and Stanning won the gold medal in the women's coxless pair at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

She set the world record time in partnership with Helen Glover at the 2014 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam, and they retained their World title at the 2015 World Rowing Championships in Lac d'Aiguebelette, France.

As of May 2015, she and her partner Helen Glover were the World, Olympic, World Cup and European record holders, plus the reigning Olympic, World, and European champions in the women's coxless pairs.

She has also been a British champion in both women's fours and quad sculls.

She was promoted to Major in December 2015 and from February 2017 resumed work full-time in the army before attending Staff College in September 2017.

In 2015, after retaining their world championship, Stanning said ''“Thinking back four years we were clear water ahead but lost it on the line.

We certainly haven’t forgotten that lesson.''

Ranked number 1 female rower in the world in 2016, she is a double Olympic champion, double World champion, quadruple World Cup champion and double European champion.

In 2016, they retained their European title at Brandenburg an der Havel, set the World Rowing Cup record time at Poznan and again won gold at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

She announced her retirement from rowing in November 2016.

In September 2016, Stanning was awarded the freedom of the Scottish region of Moray.

Stanning was born in Yeovil, Somerset, England; her parents Timothy (Lieutenant Commander) and Mary were Royal Navy officers.

She was educated at Gordonstoun, Scotland, where she was appointed head girl in her final year.

Her school yearbook predicted that she would win an Olympic gold medal.

They were ranked 16th and 17th in their event and were also regarded as reserves for the women's eight.

On 18 August 2018 she announced her marriage to Jonny Howse, a British Army officer; they married at Elgin Cathedral, Scotland.