At the age of ten doctors told Peter Purcell Gilpin that he would likely lose the use of his legs because he was born with a muscular condition ( he could no longer maintain control of his shaking legs). However, his condition improved and he was able to compete in sports.

Two years later he would take up rowing because he thought that it looked like a cool sport. In 2010 he was awarded national rowing colours and was one of the members of the rowing crew. A year later Peter and Fraser Mackenzie won a gold medal at the South African Junior Rowing Championship in the open doubles sculls. That same year he represented Zimbabwe at the Junior World Championship in Eton, England.

Gilpin has trained and competed around the world and has always left a mark wherever he competes. In 2016 he went to the Rio Olympic Games as a reserve for the single sculls and this prepared him for what was ahead qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

He secured his qualification berth after finishing second and winning silver at the 2019 African Olympic Regatta in Tunisia.

Going into the heats events at the Olympics Gilpin was placed in heat 3 and required a top-three finish to automatically progress to the quarter-final. He missed qualification by a whisky finishing 4th just 0.57 of a second behind the third-placed rower Vladislav Yakovlev.

The 27-year-old then took part in a repechage and finished first and progressed to the quarter-finals.

After two days of competitive competition, a typhoon was predicted and competition dates had to be rescheduled something that would affect Gilpin who had been competing for two consecutive days without rest

The weather was on the day of the quarter-finals was very unfavourable to all rowers but it was Gilpin who was affected the most considering he had been racing for three consecutive days without rest. Peter finished the race on position six missing out on qualification to the semi-finals.

He would then race in the C/D semi-finals and again missed qualifying to the final C by a couple of seconds after he finished 4th. Peter last race was on today and the Zimbabwean rower finished second in the final D to finish the competition on position 20 out of 32.

To cap off a brilliant debut appearance at the Olympics Peter Purcell Gilpin time of 7:01.72 was the second-fastest time recorded by an African rower at the Olympics. The African time was from Elbana Abdelkhalek in the final C clocking 7:00.72 and finishing the competition on position 14.