The comebacks : when rowers want to get back in the boat

“Anyone who sees me go anywhere near a boat again, ever, you’ve got my permission to shoot me.”

These words were famously uttered by Sir Steve Redgrave following his fourth Olympic gold in 1996. Four months later he was back rowing. Four years later he won his fifth gold at the Sydney Olympics.

Sport is full of comebacks and rowing is no exception. The reasons are wide-ranging and idiosyncratic.

Helen Glover is about to embark in comeback number two and continue a rowing career that has already proved to be exceptional.

She came through Great Britain’s World Class Start programme despite having to stand on tiptoes to make the height restriction. She showed masses of potential and was soon on the British national team.

Joining with Heather Stanning in the pair proved to be fortuitous and in their first international season they won silver at the World Rowing Championships. They went on to win gold at the London 2012 Olympics – not just a gold, but the first gold ever for Great Britain in women’s rowing (and the first gold for their nation at those Olympics).

Glover then raced with Polly Swann – in the absence of Stanning – and continued to dominate in the pair with a 2013 World Championship title. Stanning came back to rowing in 2014 and the duo dominated the pair through to the Rio 2016 Olympics setting the World Best Time along the way and successfully defended their Olympic title. Glover then retired only to show up again in the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics with a husband and three kids in tow.

Glover joins a small but growing group of women who returned to rowing after having children. Rowing’s own Ekaterina Karsten took one year out of the sport and came back to be a World Champion within the year. Bulgaria’s Rumyana Neykova took 2001 off to have her first baby and was a World Champion in 2002. She then had her second child in 2006, returning in 2007 to take world silver in the women’s single. The next year Neykova won her first Olympic gold.

Glover had spent lockdown on the rowing machine and had decided to give the sport another shot. In partnership with Swann, the pair finished a credible fourth in Tokyo.

In Tokyo, Glover became the first mother to row for Great Britain at the Olympics. After racing, Glover announced her second retirement. Stressing: “this really is it”.

Glover then disappeared from the international scene only to pop up at the 2022 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals and finish second (behind single sculling Olympic Champion Emma Twigg) in the solo (singles) race.

She has since announced her comeback for the Paris 2024 Olympics. Not surprisingly Glover was welcomed with open arms by British Rowing, assisted by her win in the British pairs trial with Rebecca Shorten.

The 36-year-old, whose son is now aged five and boy and girl twins who are three, told the Guardian: “I want to be an elite athlete and a mum, not an elite athlete despite being a mum. I want to be able to do the two absolutely to the same ability as everybody else, without my being a mum being seen as a negative or leaving an asterisk beside my name. I want to be the very best and I truly think I can be better than ever.”

Glover is also driven by her wider aim to prove that mothers of young children can be as successful in their careers as fathers.

About this time in the Olympic cycle, when the next Games just don’t seem that far away, formerly retired athletes start to be seen back on the water and back racing. Glover is not the only one that has done the comeback.

Denmark’s Eskild Ebbesen completed Olympics number three and had just won his second Olympic gold in Athens. He was 32 and the oldest on the team. With a wife and kid and a new company to run, Ebbesen decided to retire.

“But,” says Ebbesen, “I still had this motivation and curiosity whether it was possible to do it one more time. I was asked if I wanted to come back to the four.” He went on to win gold at the Beijing Olympics.

Again Ebbesen retired. But the gold had made him think it would be possible for him to continue “even at 40 years old”.

“I had three kids and a big house and garden. The plan was to stop but I opened up to the possibility of coming back.”

He did. In London his crew won bronze. Ebbesen retired for the last time in 2012.

Glover’s fellow compatriot Sir Steve Redgrave made it very clear he was retiring after he won his fourth Olympic gold in 1996. Four months later he was back rowing. Four years later he won his fifth gold at the Sydney Olympics.

Redgrave’s most regular rowing partner was Matthew Pinsent who rowed with Redgrave to gold in Sydney. Pinsent continued and won his fourth Olympic gold in Athens in 2004. After the win Redgrave predicted that Pinsent would say he would retire and then do a comeback. Three months after Athens, Pinsent announced his retirement. He never came back.

“I always said I would retire after Athens and so it has proved,” said Pinsent. “I think my body knows it’s done.”

Finishing fourth twice at the Olympics isn’t what an elite athlete ever wants. For Emma Twigg of New Zealand it helped bring her out of a post-2016 Olympic retirement. After Rio, working for the International Olympic Committee, Twigg went to the 2018 Winter Olympics. There she watched the New Zealand men’s speed skating team finish fourth. She says this helped sow the seeds for a rowing comeback.

At the time Twigg commented: “Working has made me appreciate what a privilege it is to be an athlete. It’s a pretty sweet life doing what you love.”

Twigg went on to become the Olympic Champion in the single sculls at the Tokyo Olympics. Last week Twigg confirmed that she aims to defend her Olympic title at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She will be 37 years old.

As Mr. T said: “To have a comeback, you have to have a setback”. You need a reason to leave the sport. Then you need a good reason to come back.