Katherine Grainger: On taking risks to achieve your life goals
SA: Hello and welcome to The Gamechangers podcast where you’ll hear from extraordinary fearless women in sport. I’m Sue Anstiss and in this episode it’s Dame Katherine Grainger, Team GB’s most decorated Olympian, with five rowing medals, including that emotional Gold from London 2012, Katherine now sits as the hugely respected Chair of UK Sport.
As you can imagine, especially as we enter this incredible Summer of sport in the UK, Katherine’s a super-busy woman. So I was thrilled that she made the time to meet with me at the UK Sport offices in London. I began by taking her back to her childhood in Glasgow and asking about her earliest memories of sport.
KG: I lived in this really lovely little neighbourhood. So, a big sister who was a year older than me at school so I mainly tagged on with her and we had the back street behind our house was a dead-end so we had loads of kids our age who just lived in the same little street. So, after school every day, everyone was out there running, playing football, I don’t know, hide-and-seek, rounders, anything. We just were always, always outside and active and then at school, we again had a, school was really close to me and we also had a sports centre not far to walk to. And my sister and I were always sort of taken to swimming classes or badminton things. We were always doing some stuff. So I just remember sport just being part of my life from a really early time.
SA: Do you think you had a competitive edge from the start or was it just enjoying sport for sport?
KG: I pretended I didn’t have a competitive edge but my parents always put me right on this and I think I saw my sister as a natural competitor to me so she was a bit bigger and a bit older and a bit better at everything, so she was quite an easy person for me to try and compete against in everything we did. And she would start a club or a class or something at school and I would kind of go along as the younger sister so I kind of in a way got into things a year earlier than I might have otherwise. That was a really nice start in doing things and trying to learn and compete at the same level as my big sister.
SA: And you did karate as a schoolgirl at – how old were you when you got your black belt?
KG: I would have got that just before my 17th birthday. Yeah, absolutely loved it, that was at Secondary School and we had a brilliant art teacher who in lunchtimes, a couple of times a week, had a spare lunch-time, would take karate classes and just did it because he was a very, very senior black belt and loved it. I did evening classes with more grown-ups and during the day did lunchtime classes with the kids at school. And again I started because my big sister started first.
SA: Did she get her black belt?
KG: She never did ‘cos she was a brilliant athlete. But she damaged her knees quite early and stopped doing it and then I continued and I went for my - I was the first pupil Mr Davies had who went from white belt to black belt while at school - so yeah, it was good for both of us.
SA: And yet I’ve heard you comment on all the things you learned from school as a young person, so do you think some of the things you learned within the martial arts element of sport has stayed with you through your sporting career?
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KG: Yeah, there’s a part of me that still wishes at times I’d done more martial arts. It’s an incredible sport to fall into at a reasonably young age. It’s got this brilliant discipline to it and respect and very, very good for flexibility and co-ordination of body and all the sort of things you learn instinctively because you’re trying to do something else through sport but you’re picking all those skills up. But it does, it has this real sort of discipline to it which I think is brilliant for young people. And when I moved into my other sports after that, it was a huge incredible grounding basis to then build everything else on, ‘cos my body was really, knew what to do.
SA: I know we talk a lot about role models and the female sporting role models. Who were your, not necessarily sports, but your role models growing up?
KG: When I think, now we always put role models as these huge big figures on the big global stage but when I was growing up, it was my big sister, it was the teachers. All my PE teachers were female and they were amazing and actually as I’ve got older and you look back, we probably never gave them the kind of recognition they deserved at the time for their level of engagement and extra time they were putting in around classes. I think teaching is such a hard profession and you’ve got tired pupils who aren’t always willing to get out there and get muddy in the fields and things. But I had some really special teachers who just had that energy and passion for what they taught. And I think that’s quite infectious.
SA: I’m thinking I might need to do a new series of podcasts with The Gamechangers that are PE teachers. I hear so much from people that we talk to. It is those PE teachers that get them started on that journey.
KG: Yeah, and I think often when I speak to people now, grownups, about sport, how they feel about it - some love it, some hate it and some have a very strange relationship with it - it often goes back to school. So if you’ve had a really good influence at school, you hold on to that love of sport all your life. If you’ve had a bad relationship at school then it takes a long, long time to ever want to get past that. So I think teachers, and I think that’s across all subjects, I’m a massive fan of teachers generally. I think they do recognise and ignite passion in people and see potential and I think a lot of time, I didn’t have massive confidence as a kid at school and when teachers believe in you and see stuff in you, then it really helps. I think certainly growing up they were kind of my role models.
SA: Thinking back across your teenage years, were there athletes, female athletes that you were aware of that you’d seen on television or performing that you …?
KG: Yeah, I suppose I was trying to think when I first was kind of aware of the Olympics and stuff and it was the people like Sally Gunnell and I suppose, Jane Torvill of Torvill and Dean. It’s the big moments of iconic sporting celebration that stays in your memory. And yeah I think it’s lovely cos I’ve started to work in sport you get to meet some of these heroes and it’s incredible. I spent an amazing time with Mary Peters at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast and seeing some of the footage when she won her Olympic Gold and just the joy that she had in winning in sport. It’s amazing and I think we’re very lucky to grow up with a history of great women.
SA: And on to rowing, you didn’t start rowing until you were 17 at university. What was it that first made you get into the water at university … on the water?
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KG: Definitely didn’t want to get in the water! Just chance. I was at the university sports fair during freshers’ week where it is all about joining new clubs and trying new things and I had great advice before I went, just saying, try and do as much as you can. Even things you don’t know, you don’t like, or you don’t know you’ll be good at, just try stuff. And I was actually with another friend who wanted to go and speak to the Rowing Club and I didn’t and I had an incredible impressive, an older student who was working at the university stall who kept coming over and kept sort of saying to me, you should come along, you’d love the sport, you should get involved and I think she tried three times before I grudgingly took the information then went along for the first meeting.
And still didn’t think I would necessarily do it as a sport or didn’t really feel drawn t it naturally. But went to the first meeting and went to the first few sort of sessions to try and before I fell in love with the sport, I absolutely fell in love with the people I did it with. They were just incredible women who - all sort of first year students or first/second year students who were just brilliant characters - some of my best friends to this day who are just, we’re driven and competitive but fun and engaging and dynamic and all quirky and just a joy to spend time with and that environment was what hooked me long before the sport did.
SA: But when you did get on the water, did you know, feel like it was the right thing for you quite instantaneously?
KG: No, it’s not like there’s a moment of epiphany when I sat in a boat and thought this is my future. No and because of the stuff I’d done at school I was physically a good potential athlete, but I had no technique to speak of and it took me a good couple of years to really learn the craft well.
SA: It’s one of the things I’ve heard about rowing that it’s such a positive leveller almost. I think someone equated it to learning a musical instrument. We all come to it and we all can’t do it to begin with. So rowing isn’t something that you sit in a boat and immediately you’re balanced.
KG: It’s not, to me it wasn’t an instantly natural sort of movement. I mean now it really is now it’s so obvious to me, I do it without thinking. But when you first go in, it is incredibly technical and it doesn’t look it, it looks a very simple movement repeated over, and over again but there are so many sort of different parts to it and you are co ordinating your whole body, at the same time, doing slightly different things left and right, front and back. And yeah, I found it really quite tricky but yeah, I guess I loved learning it, it is an absolute craft to try and learn. And even when I did it for 20 years internationally, I was still to the very last, I competed at the Olympic Games, still trying to learn that craft.
SA: Bit of a meteoric rise through those four years that by the end of your university time you were representing your country. Did it feel like it was super-fast as you experienced it, or was it just a natural progression through?
KG: No, even in those four years I cantalk about my whole career as a bit of rollercoaster, you’ve got amazing highs and lows but even those four years was exactly the same. I’d a great first year as a novice ‘cos you’re just novice athletes thrown in together and you can get by on not much skill and talent and we did. And then in my 2nd year I went into the senior team, and that’s a very different ballgame. And there were some very, very good senior athletes in that senior team and I was right at the bottom of it. You know, I really wasn’t showing great potential there. And it took some great volunteer coaches and also some of the older students to help me to sort of achieve potential. So I had a very tough 2nd year – that dawning and realisation that it’s not going to come naturally, it’s going to take a lot of work to get this sport right.
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And then in my 3rd year, end of my 3rd year, I rowed for Scotland and by the end of my 4th year I went forward to the British trials. So 3rd and 4th year went quickly but yeah, it wasn’t a, from day one, this is bound to be my future.
SA: It’s an important message isn’t it? I’ve got 3 daughters who have all rowed a little bit but that whole hoping to master it so quickly but actually recognising it is about persistence and time and ups and downs. I think sometimes there is that desire to get in and crack it straight off.
KG: Yeah, and I think we all want that instant gratification thing and one of the lovely things about sport and rowing’s one of the good examples is the key to it is really resilience and persistence and the good days are good but then the next day won’t be as good. And because it is, there is a real art and craft to it, there’s various subtleties to the stroke and the movement.
So you will take a lifetime to really perfect it and that’s one of the massive attractions now but at the time it can be frustrating but actually every single person will say the same. The reward is in the trying to get that right in itself.
SA: And it seems there are a few students, and Anna and others, who went to university and then found rowing at university. Is that still possible today do you think that someone attending university this Autumn could end up on an Olympic team in the future – in rowing - do you think?
KG: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a sport, because it’s got a massive sort of power endurance base it means that you will develop it almost, you can develop that base through most of your life. So a lot of people come to it from other sports. A lot of people with swimming backgrounds or rugby backgrounds or – I mean I came from martial arts – who have natural physiques and natural sort of talents in sport will be able to move into rowing quite easily in their late teens.
SA: It’s quite an inspiring thought isn’t it?
KG: Well it’s never too late. I went on to it for another couple of decades after that so it is a sport that you really can take your time to develop to get right.
SA: Your sporting stories are so dramatic and I guess a real story of persistence, a journey of persistence. I wonder if we could talk through, to start with, those first three Silver Medals. It’s a story you’ve told many times, tell again for us, but I’ll start in Sydney and obviously in the quad at the time there, losing just by one second, perhaps talk us through.
KG: Sydney. Sydney was a complete success. Sydney wasn’t losing anything. Sydney was, in the whole women’s team, in the history of British rowing, never won any medals at the Olympic Games, so Sydney was all about, could we get on to the podium? And we’d a really strong team but it’s hard when you’re trying to do something that’s never been done. There’s no sort of natural pathway, no really guidance. We’d incredible role medals in the men’s team. Steve Redgrave was still competing and Matthew Pinsent and there was a big focus on rowing because of Steve going for his 5th Gold Medal and we got to race the next day.
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And we were in the final, six boats in the final, but we knew we wanted to be one of the top three. And to be honest, at that point, a medal any colour of medal was as good as the other colours, it was just getting on the podium that was crucial and we did. and I mean I was convinced we’d won the Bronze Medal when we crossed the line ‘cos it was a photo finish between Bronze and Silver so we won the Silver by 1/800th of a second which was tiny, tiny margins but just getting on that podium it was … the joy we had on that day. If someone had come and given us the Gold on top, no one could have been happier. We’re already full to capacity of that Silver Medal and all the photos of that day. It’s beautiful Australian sunshine and it’s just fabulous medal and ceremony and it was the first, it was the breakthrough medal. And the brilliant sort of thing that created was this belief that it was possible in the whole team suddenly it had been done. It wasn’t a, ‘what if’ and ‘maybe one day’, it was a kind of reality now that British women could win the medals in the sport.
So we saw real change and sort of drive and focus and also it all coincided with the, wasn’t a coincidence at all, with the investment from The National Lottery and suddenly athletes could train full-time and could have access to great facilities. And we got a coach for the women’s team and all these things sort of came in that suddenly you could take the sport very seriously and have realistic ambitions of Olympic Games. Not just getting there but actually winning medals there. And we had a brilliant successful team in Athens where Sydney was the first medal of any colour. Suddenly we had three medals in Athens from the women’s team and every boat that went came back with the medal. And that was just unheard of so the momentum really just kept building right the way through to Beijing.
And the Silver Medal in Athens for me was a huge achievement because actually it was the first, we had some real, I was in a different boat then, we’d had some really rocky times leading up to it.
SA: You were in a pair there with Cath?
KG: With Cath Bishop and we won the World Championships the year before, that was our first world title, but I had an injury that year and we had massive challenges along the way and you suddenly realise how many, just because you have achieved in the past, it doesn’t then make it easier, there will always be more obstacles and what you get better at is overcoming them. And so the Silver Medal in Athens is one I’m really personally very, very proud of, both Cath and I. But it was a second Silver so it didn’t have the pure surprise and joy of Sydney, but it was still a fabulous result.
And whereas you go on four more years to Beijing and by then we really felt we were getting consistent results and I was back into a cord and we had won three world titles back to back so we really were getting familiar with winning and repeated winning. So you kind of get some brilliant habits get built in and you get the confidence building in. Everything falls into place and it really felt that Beijing would be the first time we’d have a very realistic chance of winning the Olympic Games, which hadn’t been done before in rowing.
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And it kind of, you want everyone to be fit and well and healthy and in the right mindset and we had all that. And that was the hardest fun of all the ones I’ve done and we did lead the Olympic field for a long, long way and then we just got beaten by the Chinese in the dying moments. And that one was just completely devastating because of the expectation and our own expectation as much as everyone else’s. And there was a real sense of loss and, disappointment doesn’t do it justice, we all felt we’d let everyone and everything down.
You are part of a massive team by then, you’re not just the British team, you’re the Olympic team and the nation’s watching and hoping and expecting and you feel we had it in our hands and then we let it go. And it was really hard to come to terms with that result and the medal that day just felt like evidence of failure rather than - it did feel like we’d lost something rather than won anything. - and that’s a horrible, horrible way to be on the podium, coming to terms with that moment.
SA: I watched that video again this weekend with my daughters, it’s just devastating to see the distress there. But not everybody had been to previous games. So I guess for some of them that was their first Olympic medal but yet as a unit it still felt so distressing that you hadn’t achieved Gold.
KG: Yeah, for three of us it was our third Olympic Games so we’d had different experiences across those games. For Annie, who was in the boat, she had just come into the boat quite recently before that so she’d had great success with us, which was being part of that World Championship winning crew. So she’d had a great time leading up to it and this was her first Olympic Games and I know my first Olympic Games Sydney experience couldn’t have been better. Was utter joy, like I said, standing on the Sydney podium and you absolutely want that for everyone who goes, especially the first time ‘cos it is such an incredible achievement to get to the Olympic Games, never mind medal at your first Olympic Games.
And my biggest regret from that whole Olympic regatta was the result for Annie probably, of all people, ‘cos she deserved, she was a world champion, she deserved to be a very proud Olympic Silver medallist. And she was standing next to us in floods of tears as well with disappointment because she knew as much as all did that we felt we could have won that if we’d got it absolutely right. So it’s a tough one for the others who’d been through our ups and downs, sort of had learned the hard way, how good a medal can be and how disappointing and you felt Annie for the first time should have just seen the joy of a medal and it was a shame she didn’t.
SA: You’ve talked of the long time of overcoming that disappointment. Any advice to athletes facing that loss and disappointment when it is just a second and reliving that moment and thinking what could have been. How have you learned to deal and cope with that?
KG: I mean it’s like other huge disappointments in life, there’s no quick fix. It helps if you’ve got the right people around you. I’ve got brilliant family, I’ve got brilliant friends who were incredibly supportive. None of them could fix it and none of them could make it okay but they were there and so I didn’t feel completely alone and also it just takes time.
SA: Like grief, it is like grief.
KG: It is and it will catch you out when you least expect it and I thought I was fine some days and then suddenly it would catch me out of nowhere or someone would make a comment that I hadn’t expected and it just felt very, very raw for a very long time. and it is just one of those things of growing up, you just know it’s the patience game of ultimately you will be okay and you’ll be fine but you have to go through the harder days. I’d certainly say, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but I ultimately was better at having had that experience and surviving it.
SA: In that moment it’s hard to know that.
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KG: Yeah, you don’t and I wouldn’t say to anyone who’s going through that sort of disappointment or grief that, oh don’t worry you’ll be better for it, because it’s not, you don’t understand that at the time, it’s not what you want to hear, it’s not helpful. But ultimately you are better for it. The one amazing thing about all humans is this incredible sort of survival ability of you find a way to get through and you take it one day at a time and ultimately you are stronger having dealt with these big emotional experiences.
SA: On then to the more positive, I guess that next stage, at home in Dorney and a home crowd with Anna. What’s always fascinated me a bit about that is this partnership you had with her, like a true partnership and so I guess, in the morning, you’re at Oakley Court, quite close to where I live, in the morning, so what was that preparation ahead of that, did that feel any different to previous Games in terms of the waking up that morning?
KG: Yes and partly we’d had an amazing, we’d had three years rowing together, we won absolutely everything we’d ever done together so that gives you incredible confidence in the boat but also trust in each other. We loved each other’s company on and off the water. I absolutely knew she was the best person in the world to have in the boat on that day and she felt the same. And we knew each other so well that we didn’t, we spoke all the time, a lot didn’t need to be said through words. And there is that moment the alarm goes off and you don’t need to, you don’t need the alarm ‘cos you’re already awake to be honest, you don’t need to be reminded of what that day is.
We’ve talked about that day for a long, long time and it was finally 3rd of August and the alarm goes off and you realise this is it and there is that moment that you will go through – that day you will now share together that whatever happens whether it’s the result you want or not - you will be forever bonded by that, this one day we were to share. And I think ultimately for both of us we just felt it was such a privilege and such an opportunity that we had. We were in the best boat we could imagine and we were in front of a home crowd and in a Summer of sport that lasted from the Olympics on to the Paralympics where you felt the whole nation were just thrilled by and excited and warmed by, and inspired and there was a lovely, I don’t know, positivity to the whole country.
There was a real sense of anything’s possible and everyone wanting to be part of something together and it was an incredible united sensation everywhere I went. And in the middle of all this incredible sort of, all the bells and whistles that the Olympic Games can bring to a city and a nation, at the heart of it it’s just ordinary people trying to do the best job they can in the sports that they love. And we got Dorney Lake and a lake we’d trained at loads and loads of times but this was always going to be different, the race of your Olympic final.
And I think we felt ready, I think we felt, you would always think, oh I could do with another day or another couple of days, but ultimately we believed we had everything we needed between the two of us and our work with our coach Paul. And we didn’t need to say a lot but the words we had were just incredibly honest. When you have that amazing partnership you can be incredibly honest and truthful with each other and I think we just looked forward to it. I think that was one thing, there was no, there were still nerves but there was no dread. We really want to get going on this one and deliver the result we think we can.
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SA: Did that feel different to the previous Games in terms of waking up and going in that morning?
KG: They all feel different, to be honest, they all feel different, you’re at a different stage, different age, different experience, different knowledge. Everything, it should all feel different. But yeah that one probably you can never, ever be certain about any sort of major race but that one felt the most - we felt we had an incredible ownership of that event - partly ‘cos it was the home Games as well, we felt this is our lake, this is our crowd, our grounds, everything’s coming into play for us and we can own this one. So there was probably a much more, just can’t wait to get started on this one. This one’s ours, ready for the taking.
SA: Amazing and I guess just that joy of all that had gone before in that moment of winning Gold.
KG: Yeah, and it is every single athlete will have had a journey to get to any Olympic start line. And I think for me it was really important not to feel the kind of weight of history or any burden at the start line, you want to feel it’s only about that moment. Yeah, just one stroke at a time and it’s just what you need to do and I don’t need to go over my history to know what I was bringing to that start line. But it was, it’s almost afterwards, once you cross the line and you’re on the podium and it all floods through you, all these kind of moments that you’ve … all the amazing people I’d rowed with from those university days through to the previous three Olympics to all the coaches and all the support staff that had been there.
And loads of those people were in the crowds. So when Anna and I did the sort of row past afterwards, with our medals, oh my God, all the 1000s and 1000s of faces and we seemed to know most of them. And I was almost that it was a ‘This Is Your Life’ moment of all these people from both our histories were there for that moment. It was incredible and everyone was cheering and singing and taking photos and waving and you just, you could share this incredible moment with so many people and that’s why to have that moment happen at a home Games is just the gift, it really is the ultimate gift.
SA: And then obviously you took a little while to deliberate whether you would then continue on to Rio and looking back from a logical point of view it would seem that you would have finished with London. What do you think was the final point that made you decide you wanted to continue on to Rio?
KG: Yeah, I did take a gap because I wasn’t sure. And I think everyone just assumed that would be it. You finally achieve what you’ve always wanted and it was, it was the fairy-tale moment in front of that crowd so why would you ever go on beyond that? A lot of people did say, a lot of people warned me of that, why risk - I mean at the moment you’ve got an incredible story, you’ve got an incredible journey, there’s a bit of a legacy you could leave behind and - if you go on and you fail in some way then that would be the end of the story and that would sort of spoil the journey.
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SA: You weren’t guaranteed…
KG: Nothing is ever guaranteed, even coming back wasn’t guaranteed. You’re up against the likelihood of injury, of not reclaiming form. I knew Anna had retired so I had to forage another new partnership, another new boat. And meanwhile the whole world has moved on while you’ve not been there so there’s a lot of risks to it. But I suppose I don’t know - you’re either the kind of person that sees all that and sees all the risks and the negatives and think it’s not worth it, I’m not going to try it, I’ve got other things I could do with my life and I did and I was excited about other options - or you look at all that and go I know but I’d still rather find out if I could do it.
I’d rather take that risk because it’s something I love and I still loved it and I still wanted the challenge. And I remember when I did it and there was a couple of articles written basically questioning why I’d come back and certainly implying, if not stating directly, that it was a mistake. And Anna sent me a really lovely message, just saying, I’m so proud of you for not living life as if it is a written fairy-tale with an answer. You want to still ask questions of yourself and keep challenging and that’s actually, to her that was much more than just trying to complete the perfect story.
SA: It is almost the more powerful story isn’t it, in terms of a lesson for people to go and explore and continue
KG: And you can, you can get to the point where you think, I think I’d rather just leave it there and walk away and it is safe, it feels safer. But I don’t know, you’ve got one life and I don’t always want to play safe. And I did, I still had a real love for it and I spoke to the great medics we worked with and the coaches we work with as well and realistically was this was something I should consider? And they were all incredibly supportive, obviously it won’t be easy but very positive about it.
SA: Another Silver.
KG: Yeah, and Rio was great, Rio was very, very tough two years coming back in mentally and physically. And there was various points during those 2 years where I think I thought, and many others thought, it just wasn’t going to happen, it wasn’t going to be possible. I was in a different boat and a few different boats in the final year we looked at and I ended up back in the double which I’d been in in London.
But with Vicky Thornley who was another fabulous athlete and we just - physically we’re quite different so we didn’t naturally have the fit that Anna and I had from day 1 - so it took a lot more to get it right. And we were selected very late and very last minute and coming into it, we hadn’t won any races together. Whereas Anna and I, like I said, had won everything. Yeah, we hadn’t so we didn’t have that sort of security or confidence or reassurance.
We both really got on and we really believed it was possible, and our coach was probably at points much more believing than us that it would work, He really saw that it could work, but you don’t have the evidence. And then that uncertainty can cause doubt. So early on when the results aren’t coming, there’s always this kind of, is this the right decision and will this work out? And then Rio was so complicated and the weather conditions changed and things got postponed and cancelled and delayed and that adds into the mix . And then the racing was, some of the favourites didn’t make it to the final, so suddenly there’s this kind of reminder that actually nothing is certain.
[0:29:47]
There were some really surprising results. But when you’re one of the outsiders and the non-favourites then actually when things are going uncertain then it plays into your hands a little bit, well actually now everyone is uncertain and what have we got to lose? And that final was all about that kind of, what have you got to lose? It was throwing everything to the wind. The odds were absolutely against us, no one would have put money on us, and you’ve got 2000 metres to see what you can do. So it was my most probably shock result of them all, the final one.
SA: Moving forward to 2017 and appointed Chair at UK Sport, so I guess a massive, massive honour - what did that mean to you personally having I guess lived within that world of performance sport to then take that role?
KG: Yeah, well it wasn’t an obvious step for me to be honest. I thought for a while I might move away from sport and do something else and just get a change in life and sort of focus. And then this job opened up and I still didn’t think it was anything that I could realistically consider. But I put an application in and then I got asked to go for an interview and really enjoyed the whole process. It was the first real job I’d actually applied for and gone through and you’ve got a bit of freedom if you think realistically it’s probably not going to happen. So it gives you a bit of freedom at an interview and things, I enjoyed. Yeah, and you’re not so much pressuring yourself and I just enjoyed the process and then they phoned back, the Minister of Sport phoned you back and offers you the role.
And I was absolutely terrified if I’m honest. I didn’t really know what it would be like or what it might involve. It’s a big, chunky role to take on and in a very big organisation that does incredibly important things within high performance sport. But I think I wanted, you can’t have had 20 years in a high performance sport and not still want to push yourself and challenge and learn and develop, and I was kind of hungry to keep doing that but in a different way as I had as an athlete.
I’m so glad every single day, I’m so glad I took the job because it is hard and it does challenge me daily and I have learned so much in two years but I adore it and I love the people I work with. I love their passion for what they do and their belief in it and everyone’s got such integrity of trying to do the right thing in a very tough environment where you don’t have enough answers for everyone who needs them and you’re trying to help guide and steer the way forward for British sport and that’s an incredible privilege.
And everyone feels that is their responsibility in the right way. And I love working with Liz Nicholl who has been the Chief Exec here for a long time. She, as a sort of female leader in sport, is just really quite exceptional, her length of career and what she’s achieved in that time and the influence she’s had. And yet is one of the most humble modest people you’ll meet, incredibly down to earth, so engaging, so much fun to spend days with and just, the harsh thing is believes in doing the right thing. And that is an incredible, simple way to be but you think at this level there are so many competing challenges to you, just to have that clarity of thought at the heart of it is it’s about doing the right thing keeps her so grounded. And I’ve learned masses from her in the two years I’ve worked with her and yeah, she’s been completely inspirational with what I’ve managed to do myself. And from day one, I said, look I really am not going to be the most experienced Chair you’ve ever dealt with. I’ll be the least experienced by a long way. And she said, well we’re going to make you into the best Chair you can be. And that’s the opportunity you have and we’ll look forward to doing that. and she has done that and just being in this work environment, working with fabulous women at this level is just such a privilege.
[0:33:29]
SA: Brilliant, lovely to hear. And recently you announced a new future strategy for UK Sport, and I guess some of the media headlines seemed to hook onto the piece about wanting to be at the top of the medals tables. But I think looking further down, it’s much more around social inclusion and how we can utilise sport. It’s clearly something you’re very passionate about.
KG: Yes, the future strategy itself, the sport strategy never mentioned being number one in the medal table or those things. What we were asked later was what might be possible if more money would come in? What could be possible, what would it take to top the medal table? So we can do that, we can number crunch and work that out. And of course it makes great headlines and it would, to be number one the medal table is something this country has never done so it would be exciting but that’s a much longer-term strategy.
So this strategy we’ve just launched was from post-Tokyo so after 2021. It came off the back of a huge public consultation that got great engagement actually from the public. As well as the working groups from inside sport, from people who work alongside sport, different stakeholders, all different parts of the four home nations. And the general response from everyone was we still love the success that the Olympics and Paralympics brings. We still want to see those brilliant iconic inspirational moments - but could it be even more? Could it be more sports and more athletes with more impact in society?
Because people generally get that sport has its inspiration and that reaches far beyond just getting people to do more sport, it’s about people being able to do anything in life. And just feel that, and these great stories you see of athletes, they’ve all come from very different backgrounds, they’ve all had different sort of abilities growing up. They’ve all had different challenges and they’ve all overcome things to achieve something that’s been their dream and their passion. And there’s something that’s incredibly human about that and something that’s very relatable, is that people all have their secret ambitions and dreams and some of it will be in all different directions and different genres and different levels but people should have that, deep in your heart, what do you really want to do with life? And sport has amazing lessons of how you can achieve stuff to achieve those dreams and I think that sort of level of inspiration, if it can be spread far and wide through sport, then that’s an incredible gift to give.
SA: Recently Baroness Grey-Thompson’s review in terms of athlete welfare highlighted a few concerns with a bit of a culture of bullying in some sports. And I think you’ve been quite open in terms of the toughness of coaches in your training and development. So personally, to you, do you feel you would have had the success you had if you hadn’t had that level of intense coaching. Could a different coach have brought as much out in you, do you feel?
KG: Yeah, different coaches have different styles and you never know what might have happened with different styles. I’ve always said I think there have been some individuals within some sports that haven’t had a healthy attitude to how they’ve driven athletes and driven environments. But ultimately you need there to be a positive environment to be able to really flourish. People do need to feel safe and looked after but it will always feel tough.
[0:36:39]
It will always feel at some extent it’s hard what we do, being a high performance athlete, it’s not, you are physically exhausted and you’re mentally tired and that’s why you need the support around you to achieve what you need to achieve. But it will not be, I don’t think anyone I’ve ever met would want it to be lightness and joy and every day is an easy day, because you are trying to do something quite exceptional. So you need to be able to be pushed. But I think we all know the lines are blurred and it’s hard to draw a clear line of what’s acceptable and what’s not but I think instinctively you know when you’re being pushed and you might not like it, but it is the right thing to get pushed. And I’ve definitely had performances brought out of me because you get driven hard and you realise actually you’re capable of more than you expected yourself. And that is brilliant. But where you see it go wrong is when people are pushed hard and it’s actually not in a healthy way and it’s not necessarily trying to get the best out of someone, it’s just pushing someone too far.
‘Cos ultimately athletes are, we’re all human beings, and we all have amazing strengths but people are very vulnerable too and it can feel quite a vulnerable environment when you’re pushed to exhaustion. And if you don’t feel you have the right kind of people to go to and talk about and share with and things then feel you don’t have the right outlets, then it can become risky. So I think what’s been great is since Tani’s report’s come out is so much has changed for the better and the positive and it doesn’t mean it’s not as good as it should be, and I think everyone’s still trying to get it as good as it can be. But I think with the right people, with the right education as well, a lot of it just sort of that teaching people of how you can push people and how you can get the best out of people and there’s lots of different styles and it’s not going to be one, there’s not one answer. It’s also the education of looking out for signs of when people are really struggling and people are actually asking for help that you might not have understood. So I think there’s a greater understanding of just wellbeing and a healthy environment that’s still very possible than a hard, competitive environment.
SA: What an inspirational way to finish this first series of The Gamechangers. It was such a privilege to hear from one of sport’s most respected and admired athletes. Katherine epitomises the very spirit of The Gamechangers as a trailblazing, extraordinary woman in sport.