Four thoughts from Australia’s Kim Crow

Having already earned silver in the women’s double at Eton Dorney, she will challenge five other single scullers for gold in the A-final at 12.30 (GMT), 4 August 2012.

World Rowing caught up with this Aussie sensation to ask her a trio of questions on her Olympic experience, racing, moving to rowing from athletics to rowing and the single scull.

London versus Beijing:
“I’m really excited! Compared to Beijing (where she finished 10th in the women’s pair) I feel really prepared and I think that takes away a little bit of the nerves. I think I am as excited as anyone to arrive on the start line and see what I am capable of.”

On racing:
“I love racing. I struggle to see racing two events is such a big deal. We race a lot, all the time. We'll see. You have to accept it's going to hurt. I don't like the word ‘pain.’ You're rowing along, breathing hard and you have a lot of lactate in your legs and it's that worry – can I sustain this? But there's not a specific thing that's painful. The pain doesn't really cross my mind. For me the biggest challenge is that concentration and being able to keep my mind going and my mind willing when my body's not."

On transition from athletics to rowing:
“I had been struggling with injury for a few years. I had surgery in 2004 and by 2005 it was becoming quite clear that I was really going struggle at the really high level required. I was kind of in no-man’s-land  and so it was a bit of a blessing in disguise that the rowing coaches suggested that I give it a go. And I think that I also really enjoyed the camaraderie of the sport. My first race was the University Games and it was fun. It wasn’t going to be something I went to the Olympics in; I just loved the sport.”

On the single scull:
“It’s a different challenge. I think rowing in the bow seat of the double my job is to be the communicator in the boat and the one who is making the calls, the one who needs to know what is going on. And then out there in the single it’s quiet! It’s a different sense of responsibility – a different role to what you might have in different boats. But I spent the first 10 or 12 years of my sporting life in an individual sport so in some ways I like it because I don’t feel the same sort of pressure. When I’m in a crew I want to do well for the people around me. I have an overwhelming desire to do my job as best I can for the crew. Out there by myself I still feel that in some ways. But when I’m out there I feel like I’m part of a bigger team.”