Frances Houghton

She raced in the quad in the 2008 World Cup series, finishing first and third.

Houghton started rowing at the Dragon School in Oxford, aged 11 before moving on to Kings School, Canterbury. She competed in her first World Junior Championships in 1996 at the age of 15, finishing fourth in the quadruple scull. In 1998, she rowed in a double with Debbie Flood winning the bronze, which was the first junior women's sculling medal for GB. She is also accomplished on the rowing ergometer, being the first junior girl to break both the seven minute and six minute 50 seconds barriers, and in November 1998, she won the junior title at the British Indoor Rowing Championships, where she set a new junior British record. She then travelled to Boston in February 1999 and returned as World Junior Indoor Rowing champion.

Houghton represented GB at the Olympic Games in 2000, finishing ninth in the double scull, and in 2001 and 2002, she sculled in the double with her former partner Debbie Flood. One year on from their junior success, they made an impressive Under 23 debut in 1999, winning gold at the World U23 Championships in Hamburg, again the first sculling medal of its kind for GB at this level. They finished seventh in the World Championships in Lucerne in 2001 and moved up to fourth in Seville the following year.

In 2001, as part of her studies, Houghton spent a year living and training in Seville so the 2002 World Championships host city was well known to her. She took a break from her studies at King's College, London in order to prepare for the Sydney Olympics but then resumed full time education, graduating in 2003.

In 2003, Houghton raced in the quadruple scull, narrowly missing a medal at the World Championships in fourth place, which secured a qualifying place for the Athens Olympics.

She won a superb Olympic silver medal in the quad in Athens in 2004 after a great season in which the crew won the World Cups in Poznan and Lucerne – where they were the first British women's quad to beat the Germans in this event. They qualified directly for the Olympic final by winning their heat in the event's second fastest ever recorded time, and although they could not hold the fast–starting Germans, they came through the field to win an emphatic silver with great credit.

Between 2000 and 2004, Houghton was unbeaten at the GB Rowing Senior Trials. She went on to race in the women's quadruple scull all season in 2005, winning two World Cup golds at Eton and Munich, a World Cup silver in Lucerne and capped a superb 2005 with World Championships gold in Japan in September.

The 2006 World Cup brought more success with gold at each of Poznan, Munich and Lucerne.

At the 2006 World Championships the women's quadruple scull fought an intense battle with Russia and were just beaten to the line in the dying metres of the race to take silver. In a strange twist of fate, it emerged in February 2007 that their Russian conquerors had failed a drugs test back in July, before the World Championship regatta, and were retrospectively disqualified. The British women's quartet was therefore restored as rightful world champions once more.

Houghton is currently studying for a Diploma in Translation (Spanish to English) with the Institute of Linguists. This is to gain a qualification to translate written texts.

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Last Updated August 2009