Olympic rowing champion James Cracknell says marriage is over
JAMES CRACKNELL, the Olympic rowing gold medallist, has split from his wife, Beverley Turner, after a nine year struggle following his crippling brain injury.
The couple confirmed their 17-year marriage was over in a statement released last night. “We can confirm that sadly we separated last year,” they said.
“Together, we remain committed to our amazing children, they are our absolute priority and wish people to be kind and mindful of this.”
The announcement comes eight months after Cracknell moved to Cambridge, where he is studying for a master’s degree in Human Evolution at Peterhouse College.
Next weekend, the 46-year-old will become the oldest rower by more than 10 years to take part in the prestigious University Boat Race, when his team takes on Oxford on the River Thames.
But whilst he relocated, his wife remained at their London home, looking after their three children and focusing on her television career and work as a writer and pregnancy adviser.
The couple have been candid about the difficulties they have faced since 2010, when Cracknell was hit from behind by a lorry’s wing mirror during a cycle ride across the United States.
The damage to his brain was significant and life changing, slowing his speech and leaving him with an irascible temper.
In a 2012 interview with The Daily Telegraph, they revealed that a neuropsychologist told them as they left the hospital that 75 per cent of people with brain injuries divorce.
“We’ll do everything not to become part of that number. We’re still toughing it out,” Turner said. He jokingly adding: “We’re not allowed to divorce.”
Cracknell once revealed: “It can be hard to feel like we’re a married unit any more. We’re more of a team but in a weird way like a sporting unit rather than a loving one… It’s not ideal for a marriage but a firm base to build from and hopefully we’ll get back to where we were. Marriage is a hard thing anyway. That is true on a magnified scale with a brain injury.”
Turner, who has worked for The Telegraph, as well as BBC Radio 5 Live, LBC and ITV, has also spoken about how hard it has been to have a husband always on the lookout for his next adventure, and once admitted that she used her Telegraph newspaper column to vent her frustration at being “married to a man-machine who never sat still”.
After his accident, she said every moment was spent focusing on trying to get him back to the person he once was. “I missed him,” she said. “To get him as well as he could be, I knew I was going to have to be harsh on him, like dealing with a child.”