‘Winning Gold at a home Games was a dream come true experience’

IT is one of the most inspirational stories to come out of the London 2012 olympics – and it stars a woman from Glasgow. After finishing runner-up in three consecutive Olympics, rower Katherine Grainger would have been forgiven for giving up on her gold medal dream.

With a trio of silver medals, she was already one of Britain’s greatest-ever Olympians.

But she refused to accept second place and finally claimed gold as millions of Britons screamed at their television screens in delight.

Katherine, 36, and her double sculls partner Anna Watkins, 29, worked tirelessly for three years leading up to the London games.

In an exclusive interview with the Evening Times, Katherine said: “There were points when we thought it might not happen and we had to overcome that. Illness and injuries got in the way a bit.

“But in the end it was a dream come true experience.

“As much as everyone was saying to us ‘you’ll be fine, you’ll do it’, we had to not let ourselves go there. We had to stay on edge.

“When we crossed the line I opened the door to all that emotion. Anna said there was a moment as we crossed the line that she didn’t know what to do, but she saw my reaction and she knew we’d done it.

“I’ve heard amazing stories of businesses and banks, offices, stopping to watch us in that race and we really felt that we had the nation with us.”

A former pupil of Bearsden Academy, Katherine moved to Edinburgh for university when she was 17. Having only ever been rowing once before, she was talked into trying out for the Edinburgh University team.

She said: “My next door neighbours in Bearsden, the Simpson family, were into rowing. I went along once for a bit of fun and never thought I’d do it again. People at Edinburgh kept saying I’d be really good and that I had the right height and build.

“I played hard to get because I had a lot of other things I wanted to do. But I went along to the rowing club’s first induction evening. They were only looking for 16 people and 50-odd women novices had signed up. Being a bit competitive I thought ‘well, I’m not interested really but I’ll give it a go and see if I can make the 16’. It took me a couple of years to get any good at it to be honest.

“On the athletic side I was good but I wasn’t very good with the technique. And until you perfect the technique you can’t harness the power.”

BreakinG into the scotland team in her third year made katherine believe she might have a future in the sport. it wasn’t long before Team GB came calling.

Her first Olympic silver medal came at the 2000 Sydney Games in the quadruple sculls and, until very recently, it still ranked as her greatest ever achievement.

She said: “Up until London 2012, Sydney was the best moment of my career. I could not have been happier, even if it was gold. It was a big surprise and the