Oarsome as Queen honours Dame Katherine
BRITAIN’S greatest female Olympian Katherine Grainger was made a Dame yesterday and told how her stunning success happened by accident.
Rowing legend Katherine, 41, crowned a magnificent career when she was honoured by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
Dame Katherine became the first British woman to win medals at five successive games when she picked up a silver in Rio last summer.
Katherine, who was decorated in the New Year’s Honours List, said: “It’s wonderful.
“I honestly consider myself lucky. I fell into something at university I adored and was very passionate about and was good at. It wasn’t my intention. It wasn’t my plan. It wasn’t my long-term dream and it turned into this wonderful career I’ve had for 20 years.”
Dame Katherine, a former law student with five degrees, began rowing at Edinburgh University in 1993.
She told how being put into a group of rowers who were not expected to excel spurred her on to do better.
She said: “Like anything in life, if you feel you’ve been put down to the lowest position, you either fight back or walk away and I thought ‘I want to fight this one’ and fought all the way to the top.”
Dame Katherine, who lives in Maidenhead, Berks, won her first Olympic medal, a silver, in the quadruple sculls in Sydney in 2000. She won silver medals in Athens and Beijing before scooping gold in London 2012.
In Rio, Dame Katherine and Victoria Thornley agonisingly missed out on gold by inches in the double sculls. She also has six world championship titles.
Dame Katherine was joined at the investiture ceremony by double Olympic dressage champion Charlotte Dujardin, 31, who was made a CBE.
Charlotte, who has three Olympic gold medals, said: “It’s amazing. I’m so lucky that my passion is my job and I get to do it every day – I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
Welsh opera star Sir Bryn Terfel, 51, was knighted for services to music.