Matthew Pinsent

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a rower. Weighing seventeen stone three pounds and standing six foot five inches tall and owning a lung capacity of eight and a half litres, possibly the biggest in the world. He is a champion of champions, a Hercules of his sport. He's won four gold medals in four successive Olympic Games, and in Athens this year, the team Britain defeated in the final acknowledged his unique contribution to victory. He was the difference, they said. He was the one who lifted their entire boat over the line.

Presenter1:01

He's rowed throughout his life at Eton, at Oxford, where he was president of the boat club but saw Oxford lose by five lengths in that year's boat race, and then competitively he partnered Steve Redgrave in gold winning performances. Now he stands alone as one of this country's most successful Olympians ever. I've always wanted to win at things, he says, and rowing engenders and treasures that. He is, of course, Matthew Pincent.

Presenter1:27

A whole introduction, Matthew, and no mention of those tears on the podium that we all witnessed.

Matthew Pinsent1:31

Yeah.

Speaker 31:31

Yeah.

Matthew Pinsent1:31

Wikipedia.

Presenter1:32

I mean, tell me about them. We liked them. I mean, we applaud them, not'cause a big man cried, but because it just revealed the pressure, really, didn't it, that you'd suffered, which you've compared to being like a submarine. I mean, explain that analogy to me.

Matthew Pinsent1:48

All that week in Athens, the submarine that I felt I was becoming was going deeper and deeper and I was propping up bulges and struggling with sleep and appetite and even talking to my wife on the phone became a struggle the close we got to the final. And then suddenly you cross the line, you cross the finish line and it's all over. There's no pressure left, there's no deadlines, there's no routine, and you know you've won, or within a minute or two you know you've won.

Presenter2:19

So so what happens? The submarine surfaces and springs leaks.

Matthew Pinsent2:22

Well, yeah, same reverse, yeah, yeah. It it was just it was an unbelievable emotional experi I mean, for all of us, all four of us were we all had our stories, we all had our reasons for being emotional. Um but mine obviously was the s the visible one.

Presenter2:36

Mm.

Presenter2:38

But exactly. But I I mentioned that the Canadians whom you defeated said it was your superhuman effort that got you over the line. I mean did you feel that? W was it in that moment? Because James Cracknell I think has this phrase crank it, doesn't he? At that point when you've just got to give it every last bit.

Matthew Pinsent2:50

Yeah.

Matthew Pinsent2:54

I mean I'd

Matthew Pinsent2:55

Although I respect them for saying it, I respectfully disagree with them. I mean, what I can do in the boat on my own is very limited. What anyone can do in a rowing boat on your own is very limited. We talked about it the night before the race and we knew it was going to be close. And what we planned is that we were going to empty ourselves of everything. And our finish line was going to be ten strokes before the actual finish line of the race.

Matthew Pinsent3:21

Even if we run dry in the last ten strokes and we lose, it's more important for us to get every possible ounce of energy out of ourselves and onto the water to move that boat as quick as we can, rather than cross the finish line and think I could have given a bit more.

Speaker 33:31

Hmm.

Matthew Pinsent3:36

Hmm.

Presenter3:36

Of course, but I mean it was tighter than you thought because when you'd given it all, they were still there.

Matthew Pinsent3:40

They were still there and then coming back. So, you know.

Presenter3:43

So they still had more to give. Absolutely. That was I mean it was a brave decision, was it a slightly foolhardy one?

Matthew Pinsent3:45

Absolutely.

Matthew Pinsent3:50

Well, no, I'm I'm really proud of it because because you you you have to risk losing at the Olympics. You have to risk losing to win. You definitely do.

Presenter3:58

And even when you did win, because I mean there was only well less than a tenth of a 0.08 of a second in 17.

Matthew Pinsent4:03

That's right, yeah. So it's eight one hundred. So it's about it's it's about the short side of an A4 piece of paper.

Presenter4:09

That your boat nosed over the thing. But and you didn't know immediately, did you? How long did it did it take?

Matthew Pinsent4:11

But

Matthew Pinsent4:13

Oh no.

Matthew Pinsent4:16

A minute, probably.

Matthew Pinsent4:18

Maybe a little bit more. I can see the grandstands down the left hand side of the lake. All of a sudden there was just a roar from the crowd, and I knew I had my head down at that stage, and I knew that that meant that the photo finish result had gone up on the scoreboard. And I looked up and there was just a sea of union jacks.

Matthew Pinsent4:37

Yeah.

Presenter4:37

And I

Matthew Pinsent4:37

And I thought I thought that means we've won.

Presenter4:40

I think we'd better hear the first record you're taking to this desert island, don't you?

Matthew Pinsent4:45

This is the uh Radio 5 Live commentary of that race. And Alan Green's a a guy I really know really well. He's obviously most famous for being a football commentator, but the last three Olympics he's been involved with rowing. His co-commentator is Martin Cross, who was a rower of Olympic proportions because he won his gold medal with Steve back in 84. So there's a lot of knowledge and friendship involved with it.

Speaker 25:11

For rights reasons we can't play Olympic race coverage, but at the end of this commentary clip Alan Green states emphatically that Matthews' Great Britain team has won the gold medal, despite the result being referred to as a photo finish.

Presenter5:25

Oh, they knew you'd won.

Matthew Pinsent5:27

I know, it was a brave call. I spoke to them the next day and they said, Oh, we we didn't like it when they went to finish you know, photo finish because uh Alan said, Oh, I called it straight away and I suddenly thought, Oh no, if I made the biggest mistake of my commentating career, I've gone and called it wrong.

Presenter5:33

Yeah, fate.

Speaker 35:33

Yeah.

Presenter5:33

Finish because

Presenter5:42

That was Alan Greene and Martin Cross, wasn't it? Radio Five Live. It it really do you still feel it when you hear that?

Matthew Pinsent5:44

Right here.

Matthew Pinsent5:47

Yeah, goosebumps. Goosebumps. Absolutely. Yeah.

Presenter5:48

Read it.

Presenter5:50

But as you were saying, it's the culmination of four years hard graft, if not more than that. I mean, give me an idea of how much training you put in every day to get to that point.

Matthew Pinsent6:00

Um well, twenty four between twenty four and thirty hours a week, divided up into hour and a half sessions.

Presenter6:07

But you're not just rowing.

Matthew Pinsent6:08

No, about eighty percent of it's on the water, and then the other twenty percent will be in the gym or on the drilled rowing machine. I mean, you know, there's a there's a mixture of training that we can we can do.

Matthew Pinsent6:20

All of those kind of things. All of those kind of things.

Presenter6:22

Does rowing use every muscle in your body?

Matthew Pinsent6:24

Yeah.

Presenter6:24

Yeah.

Presenter6:24

And and and what are you eating while you're doing I mean

Presenter6:28

Thousands of calories a day, I

Matthew Pinsent6:30

The the ballpark figure is about six thousand calories a day.

Matthew Pinsent6:33

Which is getting on for four times what the average person will eat. And what you're not supposed to do is cheat with fat or sugar.

Presenter6:43

Oh, I see. What about cal what about pasta and bread? So lots of stuffing.

Matthew Pinsent6:46

Absolutely. Lots of stuffing. Lots of bread, lots of carbs, lots of rice, lots of pasta.

Presenter6:53

Hmm.

Matthew Pinsent6:53

Yeah.

Presenter6:53

But there must be days when you wake up and you know you've got to go and do that and maybe, you know, it's the dim dark days of November and it's peeing with rain. Absolutely.

Matthew Pinsent6:53

Okay.

Matthew Pinsent6:59

November and

Matthew Pinsent7:01

Absolutely. You can hear the rain on the on the bedroom window as as the alarm goes off.

Presenter7:06

Yeah, and you've got to get out there and you've got to get wet and the seat's wet and you're going to get wet and surely I mean the the desire to just pull the duvet over your head and just say not today.

Matthew Pinsent7:09

No one of that.

Matthew Pinsent7:16

Absolutely. But but somewhere way way back at the beginning of the process, you've decided that you're going to go and win an Olympic gold medal. And there'll be five other crews out there to beat you.

Presenter7:18

But somewhere where

Matthew Pinsent7:28

who haven't pulled the duvet over their head, who who have put pictures of you up on their fridge or put pictures of you up on the shaving mirror and are and are out there to beat you.

Presenter7:30

Here

Presenter7:38

You gotta do it.

Matthew Pinsent7:39

You're in 100% and nothing can be.

Presenter7:40

Is there an element of addiction as well? You know, we hear that once you start training, you can't stop.

Matthew Pinsent7:42

And we hear

Matthew Pinsent7:46

I'm sure there's a chemical addiction to the the training.

Presenter7:49

Not just psychological.

Matthew Pinsent7:51

It can't be, it can't be, there must be something chemical with it.

Matthew Pinsent7:54

obviously natural. You'll always feel better after training than you do before because it's like, well, I'm one step closer to where I want to be and where I want to be is on the middle of that podium in

Matthew Pinsent8:05

Atlanta, Obsidia, Athens, wherever.

Presenter8:06

Yeah.

Presenter8:07

It's a long root though, isn't it? There's a saying, isn't there, in the University Rowing Club, Oxford University, is it? Rowing gods are hungry.

Matthew Pinsent8:08

There's long room.

Matthew Pinsent8:14

Yeah.

Presenter8:15

It doesn't mean for calories, does it?

Matthew Pinsent8:16

No, you sacrifice a lot of time on the altar. It's not quite human sacrifice, but it's getting on that way.

Presenter8:22

But you're smiling broadly. You obviously you imply it's worth it. Of course it's worth it. Of course it's worth it.

Matthew Pinsent8:23

You obviously imply it's worth it. Of course, it's worth it. Of course, it's worth it.

Presenter8:28

But

Matthew Pinsent8:28

Yeah.

Presenter8:28

Mega number two.

Matthew Pinsent8:31

Number two is the kind of first bit of music that I can consciously remember. I must have been three or four and I can think back to the album cover and it's Copelia by Delib, and I used to conduct this in in the sitting room with a knitting needle.

Presenter9:42

Part of the prelude to Delibes Coppelia with the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Mark Ermler, and the image of four-year-old Matthew Pinson conducting with a knitting needle. Um you were, your mother has reliably reported, a big baby and bald as a coot, um but very happy.

Matthew Pinsent9:56

Yeah.

Matthew Pinsent9:58

I think the uh the nurses apparently used to call me a potato because I was just big, bald and uh you know, I ho I I think I was happy. Hopefully I was happy.

Presenter10:07

But you were the youngest of four children and it was a a noisy household. Wh where was this? Give me the setting.

Matthew Pinsent10:09

Yeah.

Matthew Pinsent10:12

Well, I was born in Norfolk, but my father uh moved us all off to the borders of Scotland and Kelso. He was a vicar he still is a vicar, although he's retired, and he always felt that ten years in one place was enough.

Presenter10:23

So you lived in the vicarage as well. So he was around a lot.

Matthew Pinsent10:26

He was around a lot, definitely, and parishioners would always be in and out of the house and in his study and whatever. So it was always of when I came home from school, you know, he'd be there.

Presenter10:35

And you were the youngest of four, as I say. So were you were you spoiled, or were you bullied?

Matthew Pinsent10:40

I don't think

Matthew Pinsent10:41

I think those are probably two extremes that I never reached. I was definitely doted on by my elder sister, Catherine, and then the middle two, Emma and Thomas, I think would be the the stirrups. They'd be the uh the nitpicky ones who'd who'd wind me up.

Presenter10:56

Hmm. They were twins, weren't they?

Matthew Pinsent10:57

They were twins, yeah.

Presenter10:58

But but you suggested that that made you competitive.

Presenter11:02

Well I

Matthew Pinsent11:03

It's interesting that I think that in the rowing team I think there's a preponderance of youngest siblings. I'd be interested to know if this is true or not, but I think there's something about growing up in an environment where people are older than you, you want to join in their games, you soon learn that actually you don't get to stay in the game if you just kind of get pushed to one side. You have to sharpen your elbows a bit and get and get stuck in.

Presenter11:26

Maybe also being in that boat is a bit like being with siblings. I mean, you do sometimes look like big puppies in a basket. Uh

Matthew Pinsent11:32

It's not.

Presenter11:33

I I got that image of you. Was it Sydney where you kind of you when you won and you clambered down the boat? I mean, you were a nice sort of great

Speaker 311:38

But down the boat.

Matthew Pinsent11:39

Uh

Presenter11:40

Labrador waddling down the bed to try and hug Steve, who was two seats down, and then you tipped up into the water. I mean, it is like that, is it? It's sort of.

Matthew Pinsent11:43

Who is two?

Matthew Pinsent11:44

Dipped up into the water.

Matthew Pinsent11:47

Yeah, it the the the relationship with your crewmates is is very hard to pin down. And and and I mean, lots of people have talked that's b about this before, and that the English language doesn't really do

Matthew Pinsent12:00

much other than love and and, you know, y there's nothing really between like and like and love. And I struggle to say that I love the guys I row with, but it's a lot, lot stronger than like.

Presenter12:13

What about I mean, what it also takes is strength of will and physique, as I've mentioned. I mean, i is that to be seen in your family as well? I mean, where do you come from? Is there there's no athletic prowess in your family?

Matthew Pinsent12:25

Uh it's it's it's from my father's side, but I think he was probably the shorter end of the Pinson market.

Presenter12:25

Yeah.

Presenter12:31

Uh

Matthew Pinsent12:32

Yeah.

Presenter12:32

What about strength of will, then?

Matthew Pinsent12:34

Ah, well that that's different.

Presenter12:35

as grit in the Pinsons.

Matthew Pinsent12:37

Yeah, I think durability as well. My father essentially, uh and my mother have pursued one walk of life for the last forty years and

Presenter12:46

So what are we talking about here? We're talking about...

Presenter12:48

Patience, integrity, ability to play a long game.

Matthew Pinsent12:53

Mm-hmm.

Matthew Pinsent12:54

Ah, all of the above, I think. All of the above. And I think I take a lot of that from my parents.

Presenter12:59

Got number three.

Matthew Pinsent13:00

Record number three is I Was Glad by Hubert Parry, and I can distinctly remember singing this in a school choir when I was about eleven or twelve. And it's amazing to me that I was ever able to hit the highest notes that that these guys are singing.

Speaker 313:59

Uh

Presenter14:17

Sir Hubert Parry's I Was Glad sung by the choir of Saint Paul's Cathedral conducted by John Scott and Andrew Lucas playing the organ and memories for my Castway Matthew Pinsent of singing um of being an Eton choir boy.

Matthew Pinsent14:29

I know. Imagine the imagine the red kind of uh cassock and the I don't think we wore roughs, but nearly, nearly.

Presenter14:35

But you weren't particularly big when you were little, if you know what I mean, were you?

Matthew Pinsent14:38

No, I think I was big for my age at thirteen or fourteen, but only in the kind of top quarter of the boys in my year. It was only it was later, sixteen, seventeen, that began to

Presenter14:44

Hmm.

Matthew Pinsent14:47

Spurt.

Presenter14:48

But you discovered you had this great lung capacity early on, didn't you?

Matthew Pinsent14:52

Yes, cross country running, I suppose, was the key to that. And I just found I could plod along at what I thought was a fairly comfortable pace, and find that the little guys, the little rabbits, would would sprint off and I wouldn't would never be able to go that quick. But the longer the run went on, the more I would be able to reel them in.

Presenter15:10

But then you took a decision to become, in Eaton terminology, a wet Bob, as opposed to the dry Bob.

Matthew Pinsent15:14

That's right. That's right.

Presenter15:16

Got into the rowing boat. Did you know did you think ooh like this?

Matthew Pinsent15:20

I knew I liked it, but I wasn't very good at it. At under fifteen level I was in the B lineup, so, you know, in the top sixteen but not in the top eight.

Presenter15:28

So what made the difference?

Matthew Pinsent15:31

probably i i it was learning the technique because rowing is a very strange movement. It's very unlike any other sport. It's almost the harder you try, the worse it goes. Rowing is much more about relaxation than it is about tension.

Presenter15:45

So you y y you started to do it well, you found you could do it, that's all great and you're winning things and but all of a sudden you decide that you're gonna spend your m life doing this. This is gonna be your career. Your parents must have uh hit the roof, I would have thought. You paid for all this expensive education and suddenly says, I'm gonna sit in a boat, you know.

Matthew Pinsent16:03

Well, I kind of I never unveiled a plan that I was going to do it for the rest of my life full stop. I was keen on having a year out after Eton.

Matthew Pinsent16:13

And during that year one of the things I was going to do was row. And of course then, because I let it in the door, it then dominated that whole year and I spent the whole year rowing.

Matthew Pinsent16:23

I think they struggled to understand it until they went to the Olympics and saw me at my first Olympics.

Presenter16:30

Barcelona.

Matthew Pinsent16:31

Barcelona.

Presenter16:31

What happened to them there?

Matthew Pinsent16:33

I think they were bowled over by it. People have told me that during the medal ceremony, you know, my dad was running up and down the the grandstand at the back, shouting to anyone who would listen, That's my son. But there were lots of times when when, you know, get a proper job is is the kind of inverted commas what what they were hoping for.

Presenter16:50

Bro.

Presenter16:52

You you won that medal, as you did those first three uh with Steve Redgrave, um whom you'd met when you were about seventeen or eighteen. Um you went to do some training with him. Was he your hero at the time? He's about seven or eight years older than you. Did you have his picture on your study wall?

Matthew Pinsent17:05

Yeah. Oh yes. Oh yes. Because he was such a he was such an icon for the whole of rowing then. I mean I started my rowing full stop. I mean around the time that he won his first Olympic gold medal.

Presenter17:12

Nice.

Presenter17:18

But he said that when you first met I think this was nineteen eighty eight he says you were a big guy who needed to be taught a lesson.

Matthew Pinsent17:24

I think that's probably as indicative as you get. There's as much competitive uh spirit between us as us joined together versus the rest of the world.

Matthew Pinsent17:36

I could

Presenter17:37

Nymphal.

Matthew Pinsent17:37

Yeah.

Matthew Pinsent17:37

Record number four is a very mid eighties song by Queen, and it's We Are the Champions and I distinctly remember having this in the boat club mini bus on the way back from Regatta's at school when we had one. But it was a long time before I was able to properly call myself Champion of the World.

Speaker 317:55

No pleasure crew

Speaker 317:58

I consider it a challenge before the whole human race And I ain't gonna lose the We are the champions, my friends

Speaker 318:15

Keep on fighting to the end.

Presenter18:23

Queen and we are the champions. So you were up at St Catharines, Oxford, you read geography, you twice rode to victory in the boat race and then in nineteen ninety three you were president of the boat club, which means you were in charge of the whole thing, and it was disastrous, wasn't it?

Matthew Pinsent18:35

Absolutely.

Matthew Pinsent18:37

It was, it was, because Oxford had won every race bar won for, oh, fifteen or sixteen years. Um and so I was in charge of a boat club that had all the ingredients. We had two Olympic champions, we had three people who'd been to Barcelona, we had four or five returning blues from the winning crew the year before.

Presenter18:58

But you lost both five links.

Matthew Pinsent18:59

Okay.

Presenter19:00

Cox pranged the boat in training under Butney Bridge.

Matthew Pinsent19:02

Yeah, but that wasn't Grace, that wasn't Grace.

Presenter19:05

It was all went pear-shaped.

Matthew Pinsent19:07

It did, it did, and I was the man in charge, so it was a salutary lesson.

Presenter19:11

But but let me ask you a a few boat race questions that one's always been frightened to ask. I mean, what's the point of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race? Because whoever takes the lead wins. I mean, nobody ever comes from behind, do they?

Matthew Pinsent19:22

Nobody ever comes from behind.

Presenter19:24

How how many times has anybody come from behind and won that race?

Matthew Pinsent19:27

Oh, probably uh in its history about ten. So you you're right. I mean the advantage with being ahead is massive.

Speaker 319:34

Hmm.

Matthew Pinsent19:34

Essentially, there's one patch of river in the middle that's going quickest because it's tidal. And that's why there's all the jostling with the coxing. You know, one crew might be sitting on it, the other crew tries to barge them off it, and it's a bit of skullduggery going on there.

Presenter19:45

That's great.

Presenter19:50

While I'm asking questions we don't like to ask, what about this one? If you're coxless, whether in a pair or four, and you've won gold medals doing both.

Matthew Pinsent19:56

Or yeah.

Presenter19:58

By definition, you have your back to the the direction in which you're travelling as a rower.

Matthew Pinsent20:02

Yeah.

Presenter20:03

How do you know where you're going?

Matthew Pinsent20:04

On a straight course it's relatively easy because you can tell as you go down the course you get a markerboard every two hundred fifty meters.

Matthew Pinsent20:13

I guess it's a bit like backstroke. You know, I always wonder how the backstrokers never bang their head against the end of the panel, but but uh

Presenter20:17

Yeah.

Presenter20:19

I don't know the answer to that.

Matthew Pinsent20:19

Don't know the answer to that either. Oh no, um th they they have they have things on the ceiling or little flags that that strung over the strung over the pool. So there it there is a kind of secret to it.

Presenter20:28

Backward number five.

Matthew Pinsent20:30

This is very reminiscent for me from Sydney 2000. We won the race obviously on Penrith Lakes in Sydney and seven hours later we were sitting in the BBC studio in downtown Sydney and the BBC had cut together pictures of that day in Sydney and the backing tune to that was Green Day and This Is the Time of Your Life.

Speaker 320:57

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.

Speaker 321:02

Time grabs you by the rest, directs you where to go So make the best of this past and known as why It's not a question but a lesson learned in time It's something unpredictable But in the end is right I hope you ask

Presenter21:23

At the time of your life.

Presenter21:26

Green Day and Good Riddance or Time of Your Life. Tell me about your trainer, um Jürgen Grobler, because he's been the constant really in your rowing career, hasn't he? He's been there with you since nineteen ninety one through all the medals.

Matthew Pinsent21:38

Absolutely.

Presenter21:39

He's tough and he's ruthless, eh?

Matthew Pinsent21:41

He is, and you'd think

Matthew Pinsent21:43

Actually, his reputation preceded him. I mean, coming out from Germany after the war came down, we all thought he was going to be a complete

Matthew Pinsent21:51

you know, slave driver with a whip.

Presenter21:53

It's East German now.

Matthew Pinsent21:54

Yeah. But actually he's much, much more subtle than that and he says less than almost any other coach. You can row for ten minutes and then you stop and he'll come alongside and he'll say, Yeah, that was good and let's just work on that.

Matthew Pinsent22:12

And that'll be it. Whereas there are lots and lots of coaches who have just got the megaphone kind of glued to their mouth and are just blathering at you the whole time.

Speaker 222:13

Yeah.

Presenter22:13

Yeah.

Speaker 222:13

Yeah.

Presenter22:22

And then there's Steve Redgrave, um quite a prickly character by all accounts. Um you and he are chalk and cheese, of course, in terms of background. I mean, did you get a lot of stick for being kind of eaten in Oxford?

Matthew Pinsent22:33

No, everyone everyone imagines that. But actually I think Steve and I jailed very quickly, both in the boat and and personally. You know, what was far more important was last night's football game on

Presenter22:45

Yeah, but you've said, you know, think Caddy to his golfer if you're thinking about you, re him.

Matthew Pinsent22:50

Oh, well, I had to be very careful when I was joining him in that pair that I was an equal part of the partnership, that I was not being submissive to him being dominant.

Presenter23:03

But could could you be that? Surely not. I mean he was king pin. He was your hero. He'd been on your wall.

Matthew Pinsent23:06

He's him, he was your hero, he'd been on your wall. By the time I joined him, he'd won two Olympic gold medals. So it's very hard for me to look back and think I was a really cocky nineteen year old to think that I could go into that unit and and give as good as I got.

Presenter23:11

Yeah.

Presenter23:22

I see.

Matthew Pinsent23:22

So it was almost my kind of inexperience that put me in good stead.

Presenter23:26

Yes. And there was on your part, wasn't there, a kind of preparedness to to to live in his shadow, if you like. I mean, you did take crumbs from his table in the sense of, you know, slotting into gigs when he couldn't make them and that kind of thing.

Matthew Pinsent23:40

Well, that's true, but then I've always got more respect and more fame being around Steve and pairing with Steve and being in the same fora as Steve than I ever would have done on my own. I felt that he has always deserved more recognition than he gets. Because

Presenter23:58

Get much more.

Matthew Pinsent23:58

Well, but he couldn't after Sydney. That was what he deserved. But it's extraordinary to me to think that there was a guy who could have retired after Atlanta and obviously did say, if anyone sees me anywhere near a boat again, they've got my permission to shoot me.

Matthew Pinsent24:13

And a month later the British public would have been like, Oh, who's that rowing guy who won um Steve um what's his name? Um

Matthew Pinsent24:22

I'm six.

Matthew Pinsent24:23

Number six is uh the Eagles and Hotel California and it's just it's a bit like Jürgen I think. Suitably mystical.

Speaker 324:42

Politas

Speaker 324:44

Rising up to the air.

Speaker 324:48

Up ahead in the distance

Speaker 324:51

I saw a shimmering light.

Speaker 324:54

My hair grew heavy and my side grew dim

Speaker 324:57

Had to stop for the night

Speaker 325:00

That she's done

Presenter25:03

The Eagles and Hotel California. So you're sick practically before every big race. You don't eat, you don't sleep, you can't speak. Up until an it just sounds horrend sheer misery up until an hour before you start to move into the routine towards the race. I mean

Presenter25:20

You've described l lying during that time on a bunk bed in a kind of fetal position, staring into the distance. I mean, what does it do to you?

Matthew Pinsent25:30

I think it's part of the process of

Matthew Pinsent25:32

It's your body getting ready to race. The physical effort required at that level is so huge that you know that it's going to hurt so much and you're going to have to push yourself so hard in order to win. It's that kind of

Speaker 225:38

Shock it.

Matthew Pinsent25:46

you know, primordial fight or flight kind of response.

Presenter25:50

And the weight of the responsibility, because you've spent the four years building up to it and as you've said, you you know, you you live in a pretty quirky corner of sport, your phrase, but it takes everything you have to give and you've done it four times. The big question is, are you going to do it a fifth time?

Matthew Pinsent26:07

Um for any number of reasons I'm I'm too close to Athens to to decide that.

Presenter26:13

When do you have to decide?

Matthew Pinsent26:16

Well, I think in the next few weeks I'm going to go and talk to Jürgen and

Matthew Pinsent26:19

have a quiet beer with him and and I

Presenter26:21

Does he think you've got another gold medal in you?

Matthew Pinsent26:25

He hasn't said that. What the conversation will be is Okay, Matt, if you want to go again, I have to have you back at training by this date, which is what he said after Sydney.

Presenter26:37

Because you're losing one percent fitness a day or something?

Matthew Pinsent26:40

Right. About one percent a week.

Presenter26:42

Yeah.

Presenter26:43

Are you doing anything at the moment?

Matthew Pinsent26:45

No, very little. I run I run occasional mornings with my wife before she goes to work.

Presenter26:50

So what's the point that the next four years, were you to begin it, should begin? I mean, it's quite soon now.

Matthew Pinsent26:57

Christmastime New Year is as bad as far as I can push it.

Presenter27:00

What does Steve Redgrave think?

Matthew Pinsent27:02

Huh.

Matthew Pinsent27:04

Well, bless him, he said, Oh, he can do five and then he can do six, but I think first and foremost it has to be me who who decides, because it's only me who, as you talked about before, who does peel back the duvet and steps into the rowing kit and is off down to the river.

Presenter27:22

But if an authoritative delegation came to you and said, Matthew, your country needs you, you'd do it, wouldn't you?

Matthew Pinsent27:28

I think in rowing in some ways my country doesn't need me. We've created a niche for ourselves where there are probably forty, fifty people who are willing to train full time, both men and women, day in, day out, to exactly the same degree as Steve Ever did, or I have, in order to go to the Olympic Games and win medals. And I'm very proud of that. So British rowing and my country all do fine on the rowing lake in Beijing if I'm not there.

Presenter27:57

So we should expect an announcement before Christmas, yes?

Matthew Pinsent28:01

I I think so. Jurgen will be definite. He'll give me a date. That's the kind of clicking clicking clock.

Presenter28:09

Number seven.

Matthew Pinsent28:11

Number seven is Sting and the Fields of Gold and it has nothing to do with rowing. This is the uh first dance that my wife and I had at our wedding.

Speaker 328:29

See the West Wind, like a lover's soul.

Speaker 328:35

One referee's body

Speaker 328:39

Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth among

Presenter28:45

Yeah.

Presenter28:46

Sting and fields of gold and your first married dance with your wife. You've been married exactly two years, I think. That's right. And she's she's been a rower in her time at Oxford and Harvard D.

Matthew Pinsent28:51

That's right, yeah.

Matthew Pinsent28:55

Yeah.

Presenter28:57

Um so it's all a sacrifice for her too. What does she want you to do?

Matthew Pinsent29:02

She's playing a very straight bat at the moment. Not that she would know what that meant, but uh she's pretty much just saying

Matthew Pinsent29:09

I'll support you whatever you do.

Presenter29:11

Are you really in as two minds as if as you sound as if you are about this?

Matthew Pinsent29:11

I can

Matthew Pinsent29:16

I have days when I think I know exactly what I'm gonna do.

Matthew Pinsent29:20

And then I have other days where it's like, Okay, I'm not sure.

Presenter29:23

And when you know exactly, is it always the same thing?

Presenter29:26

that you're not going to go again.

Matthew Pinsent29:28

Uh no.

Matthew Pinsent29:31

I don't want to be completely open about what I'm feeling on a day to day basis because until I'm one hundred percent sure and one hundred percent comfortable with what I'm doing, then why go public? Why not take my time? Because the penalties for me of getting it wrong are huge.

Presenter29:50

Now, give me pinsant on a desert island without a paddle, and I'm

Matthew Pinsent29:53

Huh.

Presenter29:54

Can he hack it, or will he collapse in tears?

Matthew Pinsent29:57

No, I think I could hack it.

Matthew Pinsent29:59

I think I could hack it. I think I'll be quite practical.

Matthew Pinsent30:02

I'd enjoy building a hut and I'd try building a boat for a while maybe. I'd miss people so badly though. It tha that that of course I mean, uh that's the desert island experience, isn't it? You're on your own. Um

Matthew Pinsent30:15

But yeah, I would miss people.

Presenter30:18

It'd be a bit like curling up in a fetal position before a race, wouldn't it? I mean utterly isolating.

Matthew Pinsent30:22

Utterly isolating.

Presenter30:24

So you've been there, really?

Matthew Pinsent30:26

Yeah, but if it if it really is like that then it's definitely a desert island I don't want to go to.

Presenter30:32

Last record

Matthew Pinsent30:34

The last record is a funny one. I'm sure I'm not the only person to take a record that they don't actually like, but this is kind of fornication by the red hot chili peppers. And in a training environment, especially abroad, we will take rowing machines with us. And there'll be a dozen or so in a row. And for an hour or an hour and a quarter, there'll be twelve guys doing their training on those rowing machines. So it's a very personal battle, you against your machine. And there'll always be a stereo in the corner, and it'll seldom be me who provides the music, because none of the guys like to listen to Hubert Parry or Copilia when we're doing ergos. And the very common choice in the last three or four years has been the red hot chili peppers. It both drives me crazy, and yet I would take it to my desert island to remind me of the hard work and the pleasure that rowing can give you.

Speaker 231:15

And we're doing our

Speaker 331:40

Mary McGuire, be my favourite to the world, be my very own constellation A teenage bride with a baby inside, getting high on information And buy me a star wonderful little artist

Presenter31:54

I'm a career. Uh Red hot chili peppers and californication. Now if you could only take one of those eight records with you, Matthew, which one would you take?

Matthew Pinsent32:03

I think I'd probably have to take Sting, I think,'cause even though rowing is very important to me, I think I'd always want to have a a closer link to my wife than uh than my childhood or uh or rowing. So Sting would win, I think.

Presenter32:16

Okay. And what about your book? You get the Bible and you get the complete works of Shakespeare already.

Matthew Pinsent32:22

I guess it's the geographer in me. The real passion has always been for maps, I think. So I'd take a really fantastic, extended atlas of the world, so I could pore over

Matthew Pinsent32:33

maps and places and all that which I've always loved. I don't know why. Even the boring road map I find quite interesting.

Presenter32:40

And what about your luxury?

Matthew Pinsent32:42

Well people won't believe it, but I actually do like the feeling of being um clean shaven. All the rowing photos are normally as I am now, kind of stubbly, which my mother always hates. So I think a really nice shaving kit and a sharp razor, and then I could easily start each day with that kind of just shaved feeling.

Speaker 232:49

Control.

Matthew Pinsent33:03

I think that always gives you a spring in your step, however desolate and lonely your desert island might be.

Presenter33:08

Matthew Pinson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Matthew Pinsent33:12

Thank you.

Speaker 233:19

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.