Olympic champion rower Tom Ransley has reflected on the ‘awesome feeling’ of helping GB power to gold in the men’s eight and revealed he is undecided about whether to pursue another medal at the Tokyo Games in 2020.

The 30-year-old from Woodchurch was in the No.2 seat as Britain repeated their dominance of the heats, bursting off the line and opening up a commanding lead in the first 1,000m before holding rivals Germany and the Netherlands at bay in the second half of Saturday’s race.

Ransley – who had to settle for bronze at the London 2012 Games after being overhauled by the Germans in the closing stages – said: “I am so happy but fairly overwhelmed.

“We delivered what we were capable of, when it counted. I am proud of my team and lucky to have a fantastic support network – amazing friends and family.

“The best thing about winning is knowing how happy they will be. I could never repay all the support they have given me.

“I hope bringing home the Olympic Gold will go somewhere towards that.”

Ransley added: “It was an incredible race. I knew we were capable of delivering an extremely high standard performance.

“In our training and racing through the season we had attained a fairly consistent level of performance for each component of a perfect race.

“We knew that in order to win the Olympics, we had to deliver the complete race, to deliver each of those components back to back.

“It worked. There is probably nothing I would change about how we executed that race. The sense of moving up on an elite field, the boat powering though to the lead and continuing to walk away. That is an awesome feeling.”

Ransley claimed the supreme effort of fulfilling a lifelong dream had taken its toll, adding: “I put everything I had into it. I was empty on the finish line. Completely drained. I couldn’t even celebrate or really take it in.

“On the landing stage, my body started to react to the total physical and mental efforts it had just been subjected to. I felt numb and surreal and spaced-out.

“I felt exhausted and my head was banging. Someone sat me down and put a bag of ice on the back of my head and neck which helped.”

Ransley admitted the question of whether he wanted to put himself another four year cycle ahead of Tokyo 2020 was ‘bouncing around my head’ but he added: “No decisions yet.”