Where are they now? Tom Aggar

When it comes to pioneering elite para-rowing, Tom Aggar’s name will invariably come up. His involvement goes back to before it became a Paralympic event.

Tom Aggar was a 21-year-old rugby playing university student when an accidental fall fractured his vertebrae. In hospital for four months he came out with a spinal injury and no use of his legs. Around this time Aggar met someone from Concept2 (indoor rowing machines) who was experimenting with a stimulation device to get people walking again. Aggar joined in and then “for fun” entered the British Indoor Rowing Championships. It was there that Aggar met members of the British Rowing Team who introduced Aggar to fixed seat rowing. Aggar jumped on in and was soon on the British team.

“I just got the bug and fell in love with the sport. After my accident I would get frustrated, but on the water I was able to feel like before my accident. I loved the process of getting quicker and I felt I had the potential to do well.”

Aggar tried a few wheelchair sports. They didn’t appeal. It meant still sitting in a chair.

At this stage, around 2005, para-rowing was not yet a Paralympic event, but had been in the World Rowing Championships since 2003.

Australia’s para-rowing single sculler Dominic Moneypenny was Aggar’s hero. Moneypenny won gold at the 2005 and 2006 World Rowing Championships in the para single. The next year Aggar won his first World Championship title – ahead of Moneypenny.

“I set my sights on the next thing in front and every success meant a little boost and I wondered where I could go next.”

Aggar says his upper body strength saw him doing bigger lifts than those on the British national rowing team. He was also doing sessions of 60 to 70 kilometres on the hand bike. He was trying to push the limits of what was possible.

A year after his world championship title Aggar won Paralympic gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It stands out as one of his proudest moments of his career.

“I had a belief I could do it, but it was also relief when I crossed the finish line.”

Aggar then set his sights on London 2012. He finished fourth in what he says was a “terrible regatta”.

“So in the years between London and Rio I changes my approach. I did the whole process very differently.”

Aggar won the bronze medal in Rio.

“I gave it my best and could not have done any better. This makes the medal quite special. My coach helped me strip down the event, be confident in what I was doing, and not get caught up by what others do. I’d had a long run of being dominant and being out in front. When I wasn’t in front I had to approach the race differently.”

By this stage Aggar had been on the national team for the best part of a decade. He felt that at Rio he’d given it everything and had nothing more to give. The race length had gone from 1000m to 2000m and there had been a change in the rules and classification. Aggar also had two young kids and was reconsidering the amount of time he stayed away from home.

“I loved the thrill of the sport, but I felt like the time was right.”

Despite this, Aggar says retirement wasn’t easy. He’d done rowing for so long and built up a very niche set of skills. He was questioning what he’d do. Aggar got a job with a pharmaceutical company and soon realised it wasn’t for him. He’d been toying with the idea of teaching, decided to make the change and from day one, he says, it was great.

Aggar teaches chemistry and as Head of the Year he also does pastoral work. There’s now three kids in tow and as Aggar talks to World Rowing for this interview he gets in the car to go pick up his son, Jack from swimming practice.

“Teaching is a bit like coaching, you’re there to open people’s eyes to what they can achieve. It comes naturally to me. A lot of how I teach I take from my rowing experience.”

He holds on to the life lessons. “With rowing you get out of it what you put in. It keeps you honest. You’re not always going to get quick returns but it you keep your head down and keep working hard the improvements will come. I bring this into my teaching.”

Aggar is not very involved in rowing now but did go to the Paris Paralympic Games. He says he went through a phase of not doing physical training, but he now goes to the gym five times a week. He keeps an eye on the single and has been following Ben Pritchard’s progress (Pritchard won gold at the Paris Paralympics).

“When I look back on all of my achievements it gives me an inner pride that I carry with me. I’ll never lose that. I do think ‘wow, my injury was such a tragedy’, but then I got lucky and was part of a team with great opportunities. I got so much from it.

“I look back fondly.”