Laura Gourley working hard to earn selection for Rowing Australia’s 2024 Paris Olympics team

Narrabri’s Laura Gourley is soaring in the international rowing arena and is eyeing off a spot at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Laura, who is the daughter of Ian and Georgina Gourley, is a member of Rowing Australia’s senior national team after she impressed at last year’s Under-23 World Championships and senior World Championships events in single sculls as a 20-year-old.

After turning 21 in May this year, she represented Australia at World Cup Two and Three in doubles sculls with her teammate Amanda Bateman.

They finished fourth in the A final in World Cup Two in Varese, Italy, in June, and then fourth again at World Cup Three in Lucerne, Switzerland, in July, to go into the 2023 World Rowing World Championships ranked fourth.

The Australian duo placed third in heat two of the World Championships in the Serbian capital of Belgrade in September to advance through to the A/B semi-final race, but they finished fifth in the semi-final to miss out on the top six overall and a spot in the A final.

The duo were required to finish in the top five of the B final to qualify the boat in the double sculls for Australia at the 2024 Olympic Games, and they got the job done as they soared home to place as runners-up, finishing just a fifth of a second behind the winning Italian duo.

Gourley has been working hard ever since that event and will continue to do so as she strives to earn selection for the Australian Olympics squad for next year’s games, something she has always dreamed of.

Relief: Narrabri’s Laura Gourley, right, celebrates with her Australian doubles sculls rowing teammate Amanda Bateman after qualifying the boat for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games with a second-place finish in the B-final at the 2023 World Championships event in Belgrade, Serbia, back in September.

“I was so proud. It was very exciting,” she said of qualifying the boat for the Olympics for her country at the World Championships.

“Now I want that Olympics spot very much.

“I want an Olympic medal, and I would really like it to be a gold one.

“I’ve always enjoyed sports since I was really little, and I always wanted to go to the Olympics. I just wasn’t sure what sport it was going to be – it was going to be three other sports at one point.

“But I’m extremely excited.

“We’re all training at the training centre in Penrith. Everyone is trying to train hard and not drop to the bottom spots. Out of the scullers here, only one doesn’t get into a boat, so you just try to put yourself in a position to not be in that bottom spot.”

Gourley said that the B final at the World Championships in Belgrade was a nerve-racking race and thought that she and Bateman were unlucky in the semi-final.

“We came eighth overall at World Champs, and the top 11 qualified for the Olympics,” she said.

“It wasn’t our best regatta.

“We were ranked fourth in the world from the World Cups and we just had an unlucky regatta.

“The whole A final qualifies straight away, and then in the B-final, whoever comes last (sixth) doesn’t qualify and everyone else does.

“It was quite an intense race.”

The Narrabri girl, who now resides in Glenbrook Blue Mountains and studies agriculture science at Sydney University, is excited to return to her hometown across the Christmas and New Year break and spend time with family and friends.

She has eight days off from national duties but will continue to train in the boat on a local irrigation dam, on the rowing machine at home and on the weights in the gym.