INTERVIEW
I had a wild hunger and desire and passion for racing. You can miss that if you’re favourites for a race and you’re expected to win.
together.” In training before there were technical problems, and he felt that they were lacking “unity” as a crew. “We weren’t thinking about the basics of rowing: simplicity, harmony, rhythm, coming together – teamwork, you know, doing it together. Whatever it is, if you do it together it’s going to be fast.” The result in the fi rst heat was just short of a disaster, with the eight just scraping through in third in their heat – a far cry from the triumph in Chungju in September. The team were despondent, but Reed says that this was one of the moments in his career when he has felt the need to step up as a leader, relying on that military calm under pressure. Reed describes the team after the
wake-up call of the heats as “like a dog pulling on a lead”. By the fi nal, that hunger had grown another dimension: “Taking it to another level we had to
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be wolves, not just dogs again. Really beasts, be brave. I talked to the guys about making sure that you use this opportunity to answer some of those very big questions about yourself.” The team managed a bronze in the
fi nal, but, perhaps surprisingly, Reed ranks the performance right up there with other races in his glittering career. The race “was signifi cant, because of course I’m not in the top boat, of course I’m coming back, but I had a wild hunger and desire and passion for racing. You can miss that if you’re favourites for a race and you’re expected to win and silver’s a fail, then it grinds you down.” That bronze may well come to mark an important turning point in what has been an arduous year. The GB eight followed it up with another encouraging showing in the fi nal in the subsequent world cup event in Aiguebelette in France. After a disappointing
performance in the heats, they delivered silver in the fi nal, albeit in a fi eld deprived of Germany and Russia. It is clear that the new challenge has
stoked Reed’s hunger for more. He will continue on the path to Rio in 2016 to attempt to win a third Olympic gold, as part of a team which is still developing and pushing each other on. Of the team as it stands, Reed says, “In its current state it’s not as good as the fi nished article from the London Olympiad, but it has got more potential. Absolutely, defi nitely more potential.” In comparison to this stage of the last Olympiad in 2010, “What we’ve got now is better than what we had then.” After a torrid year in which he had to profoundly question his ability, Reed has had his trust in himself and his team renewed, ready again to challenge for medals on the sporting world’s greatest stage. ROW360
ROW360 // Issue 001
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