Steve Redgrave, Tim Foster, James Cracknell and Matthew Pinsent celebrate after winning gold. The team received their medals from Princess Anne
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Steve Redgrave stands today at the pinnacle of international sport and Britain’s most successful Olympian of all time. His dedication to winning five gold medals in consecutive Games has become legendary as he has trained up to five hours a day for years on end, with scarcely a day’s rest.
Yet Redgrave admits he used to “skive off” exhausting exercise at school: “At cross-country, we used to cut corners and hide in hedges. I did it because of the group that I was with.” Redgrave never excelled at sport in his early days, although he was quite a talented sprinter, played cricket keenly and was the first team’s reserve goalkeeper at football.
Yet, it was the encouragement of Francis Smith, the head of English at Marlow Comprehensive School, where Redgrave was educated, that in 1976 pointed the 14-year-old boy towards rowing. Smith was captain of Marlow Rowing Club and was making up a four and asked Redgrave, who was one of the biggest boys in his year, if he would like to join the crew.
He had examined Redgrave’s hands and feet and assessed that he had the physical potential for the sport. Smith was right. Redgrave is now 6ft 5in tall and weighs almost 16 and-a-half stone. Redgrave remembers: “It was just something a bit different that you never got the opportunity to do.” But he was looking for something that was structured. Rowing, with its commitment to regular outings, was what he was seeking.
Under Smith’s careful tutelage, success came quickly, as it did for three other members of the school who went on to the 1988 Olympics. Redgrave’s fascination with rowing grew after he left school at 16, and he took only part-time jobs so that he could concentrate on a hobby that was rapidly becoming an obsession.
He narrowly missed representing Britain at the 1980s Olympics but made up for it by winning a silver medal, his first big success, in the world junior championships. For several years he was drawn towards single sculling, partly because he didn’t want to waste time rowing with people who were less single-minded than he was. The change came in 1984 when he was persuaded to be included in a coxed four, which took the Olympic title in Los Angeles - Britain’s first rowing gold medal since 1948.
One other member of that crew, Andy Holmes, joined Redgrave in a pair which won the Olympic title in 1988. The pair famously never socialised together and the relationship seemed almost purely a business arrangement with the end of product being that of winning titles.
Matthew Pinsent, with whom he won his next three Olympic gold medals may have come from a different background from Redgrave, given that he was educated at Eton and Oxford but the pair are clearly more relaxed in each other’s company. The pair represent Leander, the most celebrated club in British rowing whose headquarters are a large house at the end of the Henley Regatta course.
What has made Redgrave slightly less intense has been his marriage to Ann, a former international oarswoman who is here as the British team doctor, and also the birth of their three children, Natalie, Sophie and Zak. He has even been known to enjoy a round of golf, often with Pinsent as his partner.
Despite being amazingly, Redgrave is still vulnerable physically. He had an appendectomy three years ago and has also had to cope with late-onset diabetes. Despite this Redgrave is now statistically the most successful international oarsman of all time, having won more Olympic and world championships than any other person.
This status has only been achieved with a massive training load, fuelled by 6,000 calories a day, with thousands of hours on rowing machines and out on the river in all weathers, day after day, week after week.
Redgrave says: “It is not as bad as it once was. I have accepted it and over the years it has become easier because mentally I have known what standard I have to be at, although physically the workload is probably heavier. If I am honest deep down I have still enjoyed it. I have always got a buzz out of competing.”
Yet, the pleasure of family holidays beckons, without the constant round of training and competition. This is provided, of course, that he finally retires. He famously said after at Atlanta that anyone who saw him near a boat “has full permission to shoot me.”
He changed his mind then but this time even such an amazing athlete as Redgrave must finally accept an inevitable retirement.
JOHN GOODBODY
The Times
