Sydney 2000: On the Day

Article reprinted with kind permision of Henley River and Rowing Museum.

30 September 2000: We've done it! As much as you ever know, I knew it was going to be all right. As I arrived at the lake at 6.45 am, not a flutter in the flags and strong sun clearing the horizon, a few dozen people already in the stands burst into applause. Cracknell, Redgrave, Foster and Pinsent are into their early morning stretch. They turn, and paddle off up the lake again. All the right people are in the boat and God is in his heaven.

Much later I discover that at 4 am Foster called Mark Edgar, the team physio, to work over his back. He didn't tell the others that he felt a twinge in the semi-final. He always does a good stretch these days before an outing. Five minutes into their final, the fourteenth and last race of their last season, they all felt the pain. Six minutes that they will remember for the rest of their lives was almost over, and the Italians were coming at them for the second time. 'I'm thinking, not about the pain, but wishing the Italians would go away,' Pinsent said.

It had taken eight strokes before their bow ball showed in front. At 500 they were 0.88 seconds ahead of the Australians, a second crew experiencing the pull of the crowd. At 1000 metres they were 0.46 ahead of the Italians who were now lying second. At 1500 metres they were 0,99 seconds ahead of the Italians, and at the line the challengers had reduced that to 0.38 seconds. The Aussies were third.

Life was thus exciting with James, Steve, Tim and Matt to the very end. They had to raise the game two times to achieve what they started in the spring of 1997, and left the possibility of another open until the last moment. Every reporter parachuted in and every photographer - and there were hundreds - gasped with the drama of it all. 'That makes the 100 metres look tame,' said one. The Princess Royal, president of the British Olympic Association, presented the medals, and Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, presented Steve with a gold Olympic pin. No athlete in Britain, in rowing, in the Olympics or in an endurance sport has ever done that before. 'The first is the best,' he said, 'but then every one is special and every one is different.'

For only the second time in their life, the crew stopped at the end of the race. Pinsent turned and climbed over Tim to embrace Steve before swallow diving into the lake. When he was back on board they paddled slowly across to the VIP side and came ashore to speak to the assembled tv cameras, but soon they were off to the other side, to paddle past a kilometre of grandstands and wave at the crowds. Steve's mate Mark Hall swam out to the boat and embraced them all. They spent a long time there before crossing the course once more and coming into the medal pontoon, after which it was the families' turn.

Tim's back held out. His mum Heather said: 'Whenever he wins a medal he always puts it round my neck. It's just one of the little things he does. And this time he put his Olympic medal around my neck, but I couldn't keep it. This is his medal and he ought to wear it. He should enjoy the glory of it for as long as he can because it's truly wonderful. And I think the people back home have really wanted this, they really have. Gold Fever did such a lot of good, it really did. People got enthralled with and couldn't wait for the next episode. A lot of hard work and a lot of heartache goes into it.'