IT only came into being in the 1940s, but Peterlee already has a few claims to fame. It is the only one of the post Second World War new towns to have been requested by local people via a deputation to their local MP. It is also one of the few places in the UK to have been named after a miners’ leader. According to Wikipedia, Roy Walker, of Catchphrase fame, once lived there. It’s hard to verify that fact, but sometimes, you’ve just got to say what you see.

Up until now, however, Peterlee has never produced an Olympian. In the next few days, that is about to change. When Lauren Irwin takes to the water at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium to compete in the women’s eight, she will not just be fulfilling a lifetime ambition, she will also be creating a piece of sporting history for her hometown. From Peterlee to Paris. Suffice to say, it’s been quite some journey.

“My dad was the first one to actually say he thought I might be the first person from Peterlee to compete in the Olympics, and I think he’s probably right,” said Irwin. “I certainly can’t think of anyone else, and I don’t think he’s been able to either. I guess it’s not your normal sporting hotbed, and probably even more so when it comes to rowing.”

Ah yes, rowing. The sporting preserve of Oxford, Cambridge and southern private schools. Right? Not really. Yes, a significant section of the British rowing team competing in Paris enjoyed the benefits of private education, and yes, plenty were raised down south. But Irwin is far from unique in being northern, state-educated and hailing from somewhere like Peterlee.

“I went to St Bede’s secondary school in Peterlee, and when I was younger, I was a mad keen swimmer,” said Irwin. “I swam up in Newcastle, but it was my PE teacher at St Bede’s that introduced me to rowing. I’d never heard even heard of the sport, but my PE teacher just said, ‘Why don’t you try this new sport’, and I just thought, ‘Okay, I’ll give it a go’.

“It was on the rowing machines at first, it wasn’t in a boat, but we’d do competitions around the area. I remember going to Dene House School, to Easington, and then in the end, we went to Durham University for a final. That’s where it all started really because I was introduced to the Uni coaches at Durham.

“At that point, I still hadn’t been in a boat. In fact, looking back now, and as stupid as it seems, I thought that rowing on the water was completely different to rowing on the machines. I don’t think I actually thought you could do the two. I was clueless.

“But I was encouraged to join a local rowing club to see if I enjoyed it, and when I was just about to turn 15, I joined Chester-le-Street. I loved it, and stayed there until I finished school and went to uni in Durham, and that’s when the rowing became more serious.

“I’d already done the Junior World Championships by that point, which was my first time representing GB, so by the time I got to uni, the GB team was on the radar and I competed in the Under-23s. I did that while I was at university, and that’s really when it became a lot more serious and more of a career.”

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During her time as student at Durham, Irwin won a gold as part of the women’s four at the World Under-23 Championships. It was clear she was destined for the elite level, so when she graduated, she moved south to be near GB Rowing’s high-performance centre at Caversham and joined the world-renowned Leander club.

She has spent the current Olympic cycle living on the banks of the Thames, but when she competes in Paris, she will be proud of her North-East heritage. Especially as it enables her to follow the lead of some notable North-Easterners who have rowed in recent Games.

“I know rowing can sometimes be thought of as a southern sport, but we’ve actually done alright for ourselves up here in the past,” said Irwin. “Kat Copeland is an absolute legend of the sport after winning gold at London in 2012, and then you’ve got someone like Jess Eddie, from Durham, who won a silver as part of the eight in Rio and went to three different Games.

“It’s just so cool to think I’m going to be part of that group. They’re rowing legends, and it’s just cool to have my name amongst those type of people. I feel so lucky to be a part of that. It’s good to get the North-East on the map again and show that there’s lots of different ways to get into this sport.”

Irwin is justifiably proud to be standing on the brink of becoming an Olympian. Come the end of the Games, though, and she could also be returning to the North-East as an Olympic medallist.

The 25-year-old was part of the eight that won a silver medal at the European Championships in Hungary in April, finishing narrowly behind a crew from Romania, and that also won silver at May’s Rowing World Cup event in Lucerne, when they were pipped on the line by Canada.

The crew put the finishing touches to their Olympic preparations at a training camp in Italy earlier this month, and Irwin is excited by the prospect of what they might achieve in Paris.

“We’ve had the World Cups and Europeans to lead into where we are now, and we’ve picked up a few silver medals along the way,” she said. “It’s really nice to have that confidence going into where we are now.

“We know where we are, and how we can improve on that. We beat the USA in our most recent race, and that was a real confidence boost for us. People are going to get faster come the Olympics, but we’ll improve too. The training we’ve been doing has been brilliant, and we’re going into Paris in a really good place. Hopefully, you’ll see that when the racing begins.”