Gloucestershire in pictures: Rowing records and fantasy characters

It has been a week of big wins, Olympic updates and a look at how technology is changing the work place.

Celebrations were in full force after a rowing record across the Pacific Ocean was set by athlete Jessica Oliver from Cheltenham.

Thousands of people, dressed as their favourite fantasy characters, descended on Sudley Castle for a few days at a special festival.

And Gloucester's old Toys R Us store is about to undergo a big transformation.

Athlete Jessica Oliver from Cheltenham is having a well-deserved rest after setting a new record for rowing across the Pacific Ocean.

The 32 year old and her rowing partner, Charlotte Harris, rowed 2,800 miles from California to Hawaii in 37 days, 11 hours and 43 minutes.

That is nine days faster than the existing female pairs record and two days more than the overall pairs record for men and mixed boats.

What an achievement!

Playing dress-up: 18,000 people descended on Sudeley Castle for the Fantasy Forest Festival which celebrates the popular fantasy genre and encourages people to dress up as their favourite characters.

Provisional ban: Gloucestershire-based dressage star Charlotte Dujardin became one of the main topics of conversation this week after she was provisionally suspended from the sport.

She has been hailed as Britain's joint-most decorated female Olympian, but this week a video showing Dujardin hitting a horse with a long equestrian whip emerged.

Fédération Equestre Internationale, the Equestrian governing body, launched an investigation after deeming the way the whip was used was "contrary to the principles of horse welfare". She has now pulled out of the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Shop till you drop: Nine months into construction, steel frames for the new Cotswolds Designer Outlet near Tewkesbury are almost complete - with 6,000 steel beams and columns being installed.

Living in the future: Firefighters at Gloucestershire's Fire Service College are now using virtual reality kits to train new recruits for real-life blazes.

'Quacking' sunset: Richard Murphy sent us this amazing sunset picture from Woorgreens Lake and Nature Reserve in the Forest of Dean this week.

After being sat empty for years, Gloucester's old Toys R Us store is finally going to be transformed into a new Padel tennis centre.

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