Ready For The Next Challenge

Rowing ace Katherine Grainger is keen to pass on the secrets of her success

- Garry Fraser

SHE’S Scottish. She’s Great Britain’s most decorated Olympians. She’s Dame Katherine Grainger. And now the hugely successful rower can look forward to bringing all her sporting experience to bear in a role that will help develop the next generation of British sporting champions.

In July she was awarded rowing’s most prestigious award, the Thomas Keller Medal for an Outstanding Career in Rowing, and she can look forward to 2018 in her role as Chair of UK Sport, a position awarded to her by Culture Secretary Karen Bradley.

These accolades follow her being made Dame of the British Empire earlier this year for her contribution to British sport. “Dame Katherine?” she laughs. “That’s not something I would have imagined in a million years, but I’m very, very proud of it.”

Credit where credit’s due. Rower Sir Steve Redgrave calls her an iconic figure in the world of rowing. It takes a great champion to know another, but Sir Steve’s estimation of Katherine stems from watching her raw talent blossom into the skills of a world class athlete and Great Britain’s most decorated female Olympian.

The words of multi-gold medallist Redgrave are as important to Katherine as anything else she has achieved.

“Steve’s kind words mean a huge amount to me,” she says. “I was very lucky with my timing as my first Olympics with the team was his last. I was training alongside him, Matthew Pinsent, Tim Foster and James Cracknell when they competed in the Men’s Four race in Sydney, 2000.

“Steve is a huge role model and legend, not just within our sport all sports at Olympic level. He is recognised as one of the all-time greats yet he’s incredibly humble and easy to talk to. When someone like that gives you praise, it means everything.”