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Castaway
1 appearance
A rower who won four gold medals in four successive Olympic Games, partnering Steve Redgrave.
On the island
Eight records
Radio 5 Live commentary of the Athens 2004 Olympic rowing final
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.
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Mark Ermler
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.
Choir of St Paul's Cathedral, conducted by John Scott, with Andrew Lucas (organ)
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.
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.
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
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.
Number six is uh the Eagles and Hotel California and it's just it's a bit like Jürgen I think. Suitably mystical.
Fields of GoldFavourite
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.
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 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.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:32Tell me about those tears on the podium [in Athens]. Explain that analogy [of being like a submarine].
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
Presenter asks
2:38The Canadians whom you defeated said it was your superhuman effort that got you over the line. Did you feel that?
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.
Presenter asks
7:40Is there an element of addiction as well? You know, we hear that once you start training, you can't stop.
The keepsakes
The book
I'd take a really fantastic, extended atlas of the world, so I could pore over maps and places and all that which I've always loved.
The luxury
a really nice shaving kit and a sharp razor
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.
I'm sure there's a chemical addiction to the the training... It can't be, it can't be, there must be something chemical with it... 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
Presenter asks
15:45Your parents must have hit the roof when you decided to spend your life doing this. Did they?
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. 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. I think they struggled to understand it until they went to the Olympics and saw me at my first Olympics.
Presenter asks
21:26Tell me about your trainer, Jürgen Grobler, because he's been the constant in your rowing career. He's tough and he's ruthless, eh?
He is, and you'd think 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... slave driver with a whip... 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.
Presenter asks
29:11Are you really in as two minds as you sound about whether you are going to go for a fifth Olympic gold medal?
I have days when I think I know exactly what I'm gonna do. And then I have other days where it's like, Okay, I'm not sure... 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.
“you have to risk losing at the Olympics. You have to risk losing to win. You definitely do.”
“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.”
“the English language doesn't really do 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.”
“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.”