Winckless' golden chance

Two years ago Sarah Winckless did something that not many Olympic rowers have done before, she stood on the finish line at the bottom of the Olympic rowing lake.

The experience came about when the Marlow-based rower travelled out to the then unfinished Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park outside Beijing with members of the Great Britain team to get a feel for the venue where they will be competing in less than three weeks’ time.

“The lake was dry and we walked down onto the finish line to see what it was like,” she recalled.

“It was a pretty terrifying sight. 2,000 metres of dry land in front of you, like a desert and it makes you think, that’s a long way to row.”

In 18 days time she will be hoping that the women’s eight which she is the newest member will be the first to cross that finish line as Olympic champions.

Winckless is the oldest member of the rowing team at 34 with two Olympics and more than a decade of racing in Great Britain Lycra behind her.

In Athens she took the bronze medal and has recently been moved to the eight and her experience is likely be invaluable her team mates.

“I’ve got a lot of experience now,” she said. “This will be my third Olympics and none of the other girls have been before so I’m sure there will be times when my experience will help.

“But this team were fantastic at the World Championships last year so I am sure they won’t need much help.”

Winckless may be in the twilight years of her rowing career but she is under no allusions that the thousands of painstaking hours that she has spent in the boat and gym give her any given right to win that allusive gold.

“Every Olympics is really tough,” she said. “Everyone wants to get a medal and every country puts in everything to get it right but we are in a wonderful position that we have a very, very strong team.

“You have to go into the Olympics aiming for the gold medal.

“And I believe this crew is more than capable of doing that.”

Despite her and her squad’s confidence she is all too aware about how fine the line is between coming home with a medal round her neck and a lifetime of regrets.

“The margins are so small in the women’s eight and I wouldn’t be surprised if the difference between the six crews in the final is only about two seconds.

“It will be really intense but the real skill is to keep rowing well while putting all your passion and years training into those six minutes.”

Women’s rowing has gone through a massive revolution in the 10 years that Winckless has been involved in the GB set up and she believes it is time that her teammates finally bring home the ultimate reward. When I started the likes of Sir Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent were a real influence, and despite a few successes no British woman has ever won a gold medal at the Olympics.

“But I believe that there are two or three crews that if they get it right on the day can change that.”

Let’s hope Winckless is as good a prophet as she is in the boat.