James Cracknell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Men's Rowing
Olympic medal record
Gold	2000 Sydney	Coxless Four
Gold	2004 Athens	Coxless Four

James Cracknell, OBE (born 5 May 1972) is an English rowing champion and double Olympic gold medallist.

He began rowing whilst attending Kingston Grammar School and rowed at the Junior World Championships in 1989 and 1990 — winning a gold medal in the latter. Moving into the senior squad, Cracknell had numerous World Championship appearances — but no medal wins. He qualified in the double scull for the 1996 Summer Olympics, but fell ill and was unable to race. In 1997, he won a seat in the men's coxless fours, with Steve Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent and Tim Foster. With this crew, he won the rowing World Championships in 1997, 1998 and 1999 (with Ed Coode replacing the injured Foster), and finally the gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics. In August 2000, the month prior to winning gold in Sydney, he took part in a 3-part BBC documentary entitled Gold Fever. This followed the coxless four team in the years leading up to the Olympics, including video diaries recording the highs and lows in the quest for gold.

With Redgrave having retired, Cracknell joined Pinsent in the coxless pairs, winning the World Championships in 2001, when they also won the coxed pairs, and 2002. However, in 2003 a disappointing season was capped by a failure to win the World Championships, and Pinsent and Cracknell were shifted into the coxless four, with Steve Williams and originally Alex Partridge, with Ed Coode replacing the injured Partridge for the 2004 Summer Olympics. This crew won the gold medal in Athens, beating world champions Canada by 0.08s.

Cracknell is married to TV and radio presenter Beverley Turner; their son, Croyde, was born in 2004.

In the New Year's Honours List published 31 December 2004 he was created an OBE for services to Sport.

He came second the pairs division of the 2005–2006 Atlantic Rowing Race in "Spirit of EDF Energy", partnered by Ben Fogle. Although they took first place in the line honours of the pairs event (overall, they were third to finish the race behind the two men's fours), the use of ballast water during the race resulted in the pair being moved to second position of the pairs event in accordance with the race rules.

They made landfall in Antigua at 07:13 GMT on 19 January 2006, a crossing time of 49 days, 19 hours and 8 minutes. In February 2006, he announced his decision to retire from competitive rowing. Shortly after, Through Hell and High Water, a BBC/Twofour television programme of Cracknell and Fogle's experience of the Atlantic race, was aired.

On 4 March 2006 it was announced that his house had been broken into and his Olympic gold medals had been stolen, also taken were his wedding ring and a lap-top computer containing 20,000 words of a new book and family photographs [1]. The gold medals have since been recovered.