Peter Haining

Who is Peter Haining?

Peter Moir Haining is a former Scottish rower and three times World Lightweight Sculling Champion.

Haining was born at Dumbarton, Scotland, the son of Jackie and Betty Haining. His father and sister were rowers, and he learnt to row at Loch Lomond Rowing Club. He attended Levenvale Primary School and Vale of Leven Academy and left school to start apprenticeship as painter and decorator, but as international level rowing in the UK at the time was centred around London he went south to join London Rowing Club.

In 1984 he went to Nottingham to the National lightweight squad after being impressed by a Nottinghamshire County Rowing Association four at Henley. His first international success came in the 1986 Commonwealth Games, where the GB lightweight four, rowing as England, won gold. He also won two silver medals at the World Rowing Championships in the lightweight coxless four in 1986 and 1987 and bronze in the lightweight eight in 1990. He was a member of the crew that won the Ladies' Challenge Plate at Henley Royal Regatta in 1989 on a rerow. In 1990 when he was persistently late for training in the eight, his coach pushed him into single sculling.

Although a lightweight rower, Haining competed for Great Britain at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, in the unplaced quadruple scull. He was then World Champion in lightweight single sculls in 1993, 1994 and 1995. Rowing for Auriol Kensington Rowing Club, he won the Wingfield Sculls in 1994, 1995, and 1996 and competed in the single scull at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, finishing 11th overall, rather than competing in one of the lightweight events introduced at that games.