Polly Swann is the elder of two children born to Sally and David Swann, a doctor. She was born in Lancaster, England, but when she was three weeks old the family moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where she was raised and educated. She attended George Heriot's School where, at the age of 14, she started rowing on the Union Canal. She went on to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh until taking a sabbatical in 2010 to concentrate on rowing. In 2013 she studied for a degree in global health policy at the University of London.[1][4][5]
In 2010, she rowed in the quadruple sculls at the World Rowing U23 Championships in Brest, Belarus and finished fourth.[1][2] This success gave her the impetus to take a sabbatical from her University Medical Degree course, to move to Henley and concentrate full-time on rowing.[5]
She won gold in the 'Under 23 quadruple sculls' at Amsterdam International Regatta in June.[1]
Swann and Jo Cook finished fourth in the women's pairs at the GB Rowing Team Senior Trials at Eton Dorney in March.[1] Back injury contributed to her missing selection for the Olympics rowing team.[4][8]
On 31 August, teamed with Helen Glover in the women's coxless pair, she became the world champion at the 2013 World Rowing Championships at Chungju in the Republic of Korea. They completed the final in 7 mins 22.82 secs, finishing ahead of Roxana Cogianu and Nicoleta Albu of Romania, and having overhauled the American boat which had led briefly in the early stages.[12][13]
In December 2013 Glover and Swann were voted as 'Team of the Year' by the SportsSister organisation, additionally Glover won the 'Readers Choice' vote. Glover and Swann also received the chairman's award from the Sports Journalists' Association (SJA).[14][15]
2014
On 19 April 2014 Swann was teamed with Jessica Eddie for the women's pair at the British rowing trials at Caversham, where they finished 1.14 seconds behind Helen Glover and Heather Stanning.[16][17] In May, Swann was selected to partner Helen Glover in the women's coxless pair at the European Rowing Championships at Ada Ciganlija, Belgrade on 30 May.[18] In the heat they set a new European best time of 7 minutes 9 seconds, and in the final on 1 June they lowered it to 7 minutes 3.62 seconds, finishing 5 seconds ahead of the reigning European champion Cristina Grigoras and Laura Oprea of Romania.[19][20][21]
Having taken time away from rowing to complete her medical studies at the University of Edinburgh, Swann returned to international competition after being selected in the W4- for the Poznań World Cup in June 2019.[23]
In June 2021, Glover and Swann were named as the women's pair for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, making Glover the first mother to row for Britain.[26][27] On 28 July they qualified for the A Final by finishing second in their semi-final. In the final on 29 July they finished in fourth position, completing in 6 minutes 54.96 seconds, which was 4.77 seconds behind the Gold medalists, Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler of New Zealand and 2.86 seconds behind the bronze medalists Caileigh Filmer and Hillary Janssens of Canada.[28] Afterwards Glover said "The reward is knowing that we crossed the line giving it our all. The frustration would have been coming away from thinking we had more and we didn’t."[29]
