Paying tribute to the support of friends and family
Winning a gold medal is an unbridled and overwhelming joy.
I get great satisfaction out of knowing that a gold medal is the reward for everything that went into the race.
All the support from friends and family in Moseley and in Yorkshire, all the money in my bank and in the training base at Caversham from the National Lottery.
I’ve had so much support, even from the club in Clarendon and my school in Wharfedale.
To come home with this medal and show them what they helped me to achieve is very, very special. And I get to wear this medal now whenever I want to.
I started the Beijing Olympics not knowing where to go after the Games and it’s still a case of who know what’s going to happen.
I would love to go to London and win a gold medal in my home country.
But at the minute I’m taking it one day at a time. Hopefully I will still love rowing and take a huge enjoyment out of the sport.
It’s the world championships in Poland in August and I might decide to take some time out before that.
But let's go back to Beijing.
I shut down a couple of months before the Olympics and from then on it was quite easy to stay in my own bubble.
Every day we were improving, from the heats to the semi-final to the final.
And that made me really happy.
I was really confident no-one could beat us and that reflected how we raced the first 1,500m of the final.
The Aussies went out ahead of us but I knew they would pay for that.
They knew the only way they could beat us was to row out fast.
But we had a solid race plan and a solid rhythm. We stuck to our guns and to our rhythm.
It was quite a gamble by them and we knew going into the last 250 they couldn’t stop us because we were executing the last part of our race plan.
If you put 100% effort into 1,750m, then you’re going to slow up over the last 250m.
We put 100% effort into 2,000m and you can only do that if you have confidence in your coaching, your crew and your gameplan.
If we gave 100% and finished silver then we wouldn’t be able to argue because we were beaten by a better crew.
But we didn't, and I will never tire of looking at this beautiful gold medal.
I get great satisfaction out of knowing that a gold medal is the reward for everything that went into the race.
All the support from friends and family in Moseley and in Yorkshire, all the money in my bank and in the training base at Caversham from the National Lottery.
I’ve had so much support, even from the club in Clarendon and my school in Wharfedale.
To come home with this medal and show them what they helped me to achieve is very, very special. And I get to wear this medal now whenever I want to.
I started the Beijing Olympics not knowing where to go after the Games and it’s still a case of who know what’s going to happen.
I would love to go to London and win a gold medal in my home country.
But at the minute I’m taking it one day at a time. Hopefully I will still love rowing and take a huge enjoyment out of the sport.
It’s the world championships in Poland in August and I might decide to take some time out before that.
But let's go back to Beijing.
I shut down a couple of months before the Olympics and from then on it was quite easy to stay in my own bubble.
Every day we were improving, from the heats to the semi-final to the final.
And that made me really happy.
I was really confident no-one could beat us and that reflected how we raced the first 1,500m of the final.
The Aussies went out ahead of us but I knew they would pay for that.
They knew the only way they could beat us was to row out fast.
But we had a solid race plan and a solid rhythm. We stuck to our guns and to our rhythm.
It was quite a gamble by them and we knew going into the last 250 they couldn’t stop us because we were executing the last part of our race plan.
If you put 100% effort into 1,750m, then you’re going to slow up over the last 250m.
We put 100% effort into 2,000m and you can only do that if you have confidence in your coaching, your crew and your gameplan.
If we gave 100% and finished silver then we wouldn’t be able to argue because we were beaten by a better crew.
But we didn't, and I will never tire of looking at this beautiful gold medal.
posted by Nick Westby at 6:00 AM
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