Despite the Olympics heading to South America next year, a rower has already taken a historic gold in Rio.

Sam Meijer, of Kings Avenue, in Muswell Hill, was part of the men’s quads team for Great Britain at the championships last month.

Taking to the Lagoa de Rodrigo Freitas, one of the pre-Olympics try-out events, Sam’s crewmates - Chris Lawrie, Josh Armstrong, Gavin Horsburgh - stormed through the field to beat the top national crews from New Zealand, Ukraine, Germany.

“I’m absolutely over the moon” said Sam, a bursary boy at London’s Westminster School.

“Although we were down on the field at 500m we were not worried, we stuck to our plan. That brought us up to the rest of the field by halfway - and a hard-fought Gold by the end.”

Great Britain Rowers will hoping to replicate the success of its junior crew next year as the under 18’s side produced a stunning comeback in the race after being fifth with 1km remaining.

GB Rowing Director Sir David Tanner said it was a “quite exceptional performance from the Men’s Quad to take the field apart completely in the last 600m - the first Gold medal for any GB Men’s Quad at a Championships.”

The Quads' victory was GB’s only Gold, with GB winning silvers in the men’s four and the women’s quads.

Sam and Chris Lawrie had won Silver in the 2014 championships after losing to Germany at the Hamburg event but went one better this year.