Going for gold

The key to success is working to create small margins of difference, according to gold medal-winning Olympian Katherine Grainger.

Speaking at the MRS Conference, Grainger took the audience through her rowing story starting at Edinburgh University, where she initially failed to get into the four boats available and was placed in what she called a “remedial boat”.

She continued: “All athletes are about extreme insecurity and ego and it was a massive sledgehammer to me.”

“Everything you do at the top level is hard work, experience and knowledge,” Grainger continued. “After four years [at Edinburgh], I finally got it right.”

Grainger said that following a silver medal win at the Sydney Olympic games – where her four became the first GB women’s boat to get a medal – expectations changed for the crews with the realisation that it was possible to gain medals, leading to the success in London last year.

But, she added, even when you are at the top, there is still work to be done.

“The biggest thing in sport is that even if you are winning, you can never settle and think you’ve done enough,” Grainger said.

Conference visitors were shown a video that the British Olympics Association compiled after Athens. It pointed out that the difference between five gold medals for the GB team and silver placings was an aggregate 0.545 seconds.

Grainger pointed out: “Checking every detail to achieve that small margin [is what] makes you the best.”

She said: “You look at the tiny margins which can make the difference. In every single area you can make an improvement even if it’s minute. But added together it is a massive difference.”