Smiles all around in Olympic women’s double final

Great Britain’s most medalled woman rower was racing. Katherine Grainger was vying for the first Olympic gold of her triple Olympic silver career.

This is the third story in World Rowing’s weekly series of reviews of the 14 events at the London Olympic Games rowing regatta. This week the women’s double sculls final is the focus.

The women’s double final took place on Friday 3 August, 2012 and saw the British duo of Grainger and Anna Watkins lead for the entire race. Grainger and Watkins were the undisputed favourites for the final. They had remained unbeaten ever since joining together in 2010 and in their Olympic heat four days prior, they had broke the Olympic Best Time by a huge five seconds. It was Grainger and Watkins’ race to lose.

Great Britain’s main rivals appeared to be Australia’s Kim Crow and Brooke Pratley. Crow and Pratley had finished second to Grainger and Watkins on a number of occasions, but were fired up to peak for this Olympic final. Crow, the only Olympic rower at this regatta to be competing in two events, and Pratley stuck tightly to the British duo through the first half of the race. But Grainger and Watkins were taking no chances and managed to pull away in the second half to secure gold and cement Grainger’s place in history.

The silver for Australia turned out to be the first of two Olympic medals for Crow who, at 27 is already working towards Rio 2016. Pratley has declared her retirement. In third place was Julia Michalska and Magdalena Fularczyk of Poland.

When the

se six medallists stood on the podium all of them had big smiles on their face. All of them had achieved something extraordinary. For Michalska and Fularczyk it was the first Olympic medal for Polish women’s rowing in 32 years.

“We received a lot of attention after winning the medal,” says Michalska. “It was mainly because it was a second medal for Poland during the Games and everyone was waiting for it (Poland got only 10 medal in total).”

Michalska started off her rowing career in the single. After finishing sixth in this boat at the Beijing Olympics, she started rowing together with friend and fellow club-mate, Fularczyk. Their first season, 2009, was very successful and was rounded out with a World Championship title – the first ever in Polish women’s rowing.

Since then the duo have battled injury, issues and mixed results. When the duo warmed up for the Olympic final, though, Michalska knew they had a good chance of medalling. “I felt that the boat was moving well and I then knew that we could fight for a medal,” says Michalska.

The Eton Dorney regatta course had about 30,000 spectators watching the final, spread along the bank from about 300m mark to the huge concentration in the finish line grandstands. “That was amazing,” says Michalska, “but for me it was painful too. I felt a big pain in my right ear because of the noise!”

The interest in Michalska and Fularczyk meant that they carried their medals around for the last couple of months and Michalska, who has been competing at Boston’s Head of the Charles in the United States, took her medal with her.

Michalska was invited to join the ‘Great8’ at the Head of the Charles – a composite women’s eight of some of the best scullers in the world – and it was her first race since the Olympics.

“In the first three weeks after Olympics I was doing some training,” says Michalska. “But later I was pretty busy because of my wedding preparation so I've done almost nothing since. But in Boston and during the race I felt good.”

Michalska calls her recent marriage, to fellow rower Michal Plotkowiak, her favourite indulgence following the Olympics and on returning to Poland, Michalska will have until January to decide whether she plans to continue rowing. Her decision is still to be made.