Major Heather Mary Stanning (born 26 January 1985) is a retired British professional rower. As a member of the Great Britain rowing team, she is a double Olympic champion, double World champion, quadruple World Cup champion and double European champion. She has also been a British champion in both women's fours and quad sculls.
Paired with Helen Glover in 2012, she won an Olympic gold medal, the first for their country of the 2012 Olympiad and the first ever British Olympic gold medal in women's rowing. She set the world record time in partnership with Helen Glover at the 2014 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam, and they retained their World title at the 2015 World Rowing Championships in Lac d'Aiguebelette, France.
In 2016, they retained their European title at Brandenburg an der Havel, set the World Rowing Cup record time at Poznań and again won gold at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She was ranked the number 1 female rower in the world in 2016 and announced her retirement from rowing in November 2016.
She is a British Army officer and currently holds the rank of Major in the Royal Artillery; she was given dispensation from the army to pursue an Olympic career with the British team at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Stanning was born in Yeovil, Somerset, England; her parents Timothy (Lieutenant Commander) and Mary were Royal Navy officers. She was educated at Gordonstoun, Scotland, where she was appointed head girl in her final year. Her school yearbook predicted that she would win an Olympic gold medal.
Whilst in sixth form she won a British Army scholarship and went on to study sports technology at the University of Bath, England. She started rowing in 2006 under the Team GB Start Programme. She graduated from university in 2007 before going on to Sandhurst alongside her brother, Martin, who joined the Black Watch. Another brother, Alistair, is a Royal Navy doctor. On 18 August 2018 she announced her marriage to Jonny Howse, a British Army officer; they married at Elgin Cathedral, Scotland.
Stanning was commissioned from Sandhurst into the Royal Artillery in August 2008, based at Larkhill Garrison on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire. She held the rank of Captain and served in 32nd Regiment Royal Artillery. She was promoted to Major in December 2015 and from February 2017 resumed work full-time in the army before attending Staff College in September 2017.
In 2006 Stanning started rowing and was selected for Team GB "Start" programme where she was coached by Paul Stannard. In 2007, she partnered Olivia Whitlam to win the women's pair competition at the World Rowing U23 Championships. In 2008, she won the Remenham Challenge Cup for women's eights at the Henley Royal Regatta. In 2009, she tried out for TeamGB and joined the crew of the women's eight with Victoria Bryant, Ruth Walczak, Victoria Meyer-Laker, Monica Relph, Jaqueline Round, Leonora Kennedy, Rachael Jefferies and Zoe de Toledo. They finished seventh at the European Rowing Championships held in Brest, Belarus.
Stanning was given leave from the army in 2010 to train for Olympic competition and was paired with Helen Glover in the women's coxless pair. At the 2010 World Rowing Cup they finished 9th in Bled and 5th in Munich, but were unable to race at Lucerne due to Glover's illness.
In July Glover and Stanning started to be coached by Robin Williams. They were ranked 16th and 17th in their event and were also regarded as reserves for the women's eight. They improved so rapidly that at the 2010 World Rowing Championships at Lake Karapiro in New Zealand in November they won a silver medal behind Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown of New Zealand.
In 2011 Glover and Stanning won the coxless pair event at the GB Rowing Team Senior Trials at Eton-Dorney with a time of 7 minutes 15 seconds. They went on to win both the Munich and Lucerne World Rowing Cup regattas, beating the reigning world champions Haigh and Scown of New Zealand. Great Britain did not enter round 2 of the World Cup in Hamburg due to an E. coli outbreak in the area.
Glover and Stanning finished second in the 2011 World Rowing Championships at Lake Bled, Slovenia, 0.1 seconds behind the winning New Zealand crew of Haigh and Scown, despite both getting a stomach bug when they arrived in Slovenia. Their coach Robin Williams described it as a gold medal performance without getting the gold medal. In 2015, after retaining their world championship, Stanning said “Thinking back four years we were clear water ahead but lost it on the line. We certainly haven’t forgotten that lesson.
In 2012 Glover and Stanning completed a clean sweep of all three events in the women's coxless pair of the World Rowing Cup. Winning gold at Belgrade Sava, Serbia; Lucerne Rotsee, Switzerland; and Munich Oberschleissheim, Germany.
On 1 August 2012 Glover and Stanning won the gold medal in the women's coxless pair at the 2012 Summer Olympics. This was Team GB's first gold medal of London 2012, and a first ever Olympic gold medal for British women's rowing. As with other gold medal winners, Royal Mail issued a commemorative stamp showing their celebrations, plus painting a post box gold in her home town of Lossiemouth to commemorate the event. After the race, the BBC played a message to Stanning from her regiment, which was deployed in Afghanistan.
Her commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Craig Palmer, who gave her leave for training, said “I wish to congratulate Heather and Helen on their success; it was an excellent achievement. Soldiers from 32nd Regiment Royal Artillery were thrilled to watch the race from their bases in Afghanistan, while their friends and families watched it here in the UK. I am sure that they have been inspired by her performance and we look forward to welcoming her back to the Regiment later this year. I know that she is keen to deploy with her soldiers to Helmand in 2013.”
The Regimental Colonel of the Royal Artillery, Colonel Roddy Lee said: We are immensely proud of Captain Stanning. She is a credit to the Royal Regiment of Artillery, to the Army and to the nation.
In September 2012 Stanning reported to Larkhill garrison and resumed her British Army career. She was posted to Helmand Province in Afghanistan where she worked as an Operations officer for the iUAS (Intelligent Unmanned Aircraft Systems). She completed her tour of duty in the summer of 2013, and returned to training in December.
On 17 March 2014 Stanning was part of the composite crew that won the Women's Eights Head of the River Race on the River Thames in London, setting a record time of 17:42.2 for the 4 1⁄4-mile (6.8 km) Championship Course from Mortlake to Putney. The crew comprised Heather Stanning – Army RC; Beth Rodford – Gloucester RC; Zoe Lee – Imperial College BC; Jessica Eddie – London RC; Helen Glover – Minerva Bath Rowing Club; Olivia Carnegie-Brown – Oxford Brookes University BC; Tina Stiller – Tees RC; Caragh McMurtry – Reading University BC; cox Phelan Hill – Leander Club.