INTERVIEW
“I haven’t done a proper day’s work in
my life; I’ve messed about on the river for most of it,” says Sir Steve Redgrave, with only a small hint of irony.
Anyone who is at all familiar with Sir Steve Redgrave’s story knows that this is simply not true, but it does illustrate the quandary faced by every sportsman and woman: how to fill the gap left by a life-long commitment to competition, not to mention how to support oneself financially after funding and endorse- ments dry up. For Redgrave, the answer to the lat-
ter has involved varied business inter- ests, from an involvement with Jaguar cars to what might at first seem like an unlikely entry into the world of men’s fashion, designing a collection of shirts for Debenhams made from ethical, Fair- trade-approved fabrics. “You’ve got to pay the mortgage on this”, he says, gesturing to his home, which he and his wife, Ann, built after his retirement, in the leafy fringes of Marlow, near to where he grew up. However, Redgrave has also shown himself to be committed to securing a genuine legacy, both personal and national: “I do seem to get drawn into putting a lot back into community and national and international sport.” Redgrave has achieved almost
everything possible for a professional sportsman. The list of his accomplish- ments includes the legendary five Olympic gold medals over an aston- ishing 20-year period – the longest of any athlete in an endurance sport – as well as the less well known but almost equally impressive tally of nine World Championship golds. The BBC Sports Personality of the Year award for 2000 and, of course, the knighthood the next year only serve to confirm the way in which Redgrave’s victories have established him as an icon in the British sporting pantheon.
46 The stories of Redgrave’s rise and
his extraordinary staying power have often been told, but it is striking that even at such a distance from those events, he is still circumspect about the reasons for his success. “I was pretty lucky in some ways,” he claims. At first this might seem like the false modesty of the modern sporting interview, but Redgrave is honest in acknowledg- ing his own talent. “At one time I was probably recognised as being one of the best athletes in the world in rowing, if not the best athlete.” The element of luck was simply to be part of a particu- larly high-functioning team. “Probably the two best rowing coaches that are recognised around the world – one Mike Spracklen, and the other one Jürgen Grobler – both coached me at different times in my career.” The other big part of what he iden- tifies as luck was his partnership with Matthew Pinsent, who he says over- took him at Atlanta as the best athlete in rowing worldwide – although it is difficult to imagine him acknowledging that at the time. To this day the sense of their intense competitiveness comes through when Redgrave talks about their long time rowing together. “It was us against each other in the gym, on the rowing machine, whatever we were doing – playing cards in the hotel foyer – but when we got into the pair, then it was us against the world.”
British rowing in good shape Part of the impressive legacy left by the pair can be observed in the continued success of Team GB rowing. It is one of the brutal facts of the British Olympic funding system that victory is the only way to ensure a continuous stream of
financial support. Pinsent and Redgrave provided the basis upon which the team’s success was founded. Redgrave is unequivocal in his praise of Team GB rowing: “British rowing is in very good shape,” he says, pointing to the “consistency and quality of our people at the top.” He adds that the manage- ment are unusually harmonious, with no in-fighting or Machiavellian scheming behind the scenes. This is not to say that Team GB can
rest on its laurels. At London 2012 the home advantage in terms of funding, support and motivation helped the team immensely across the whole Games but, in Redgrave’s view, “It’s going to be a big ask to do better than we did in London out in Rio,” simply be- cause the results were so outstanding. For now, Redgrave is positive about
Team GB’s set-up: “In the early days I would have said that it’s about the individual; now I think it’s more about the infrastructure and the way that it’s managed, and I think we manage our athletes better than any other country.” Preserving this position at the pinnacle will be the major challenge of the next few years, especially in view of the long-mooted possibility of both Jürgen Grobler and British Rowing’s perfor- mance director, David Tanner, probably retiring in the near future.
A new challenge at Henley Redgrave himself will be hoping to overcome similar succession issues next year when, all being well, he takes over the chairmanship of Henley Royal Re- gatta, one of the most important events in the British rowing calendar. The 2014 regatta, the 175th, marks the last as chairman for Mike Sweeney.
ROW360 // Issue 001
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