ROWING: Worse than childbirth, say's golden boy Reed's mum
10:20am Monday 18th August 2008
By Nick Hartland
SUE Reed, mum of Olympic rowing champion Peter, says watching the gold
medal race in Beijing was worse than childbirth.
Pete, along with Athens champion Steve Williams, Tom James and Andy
Hodge, took a glorious gold in the Coxless Four event at the Shunyi
rowing lake.
But former Nailsworth mayor, Sue said: "I've never had nerves like
that before, Watching was worse than having a baby, more painful."
"Pete’s only goal was gold, nothing less would do. It's been a really
emotional rollercoaster and I'm so proud of what he's done."
Naval officer Pete, a former pupil at Cirencester Deer Park, helped
his team power past Australia only in sight of the line.
Australia appeared to have the golds around their necks as they
passed the grandstands to the roar of the 13,000 crowd, sitting nearly
three-quarters of a length up.
But Team GB were inching back and began to hunt down the Aussies.
With 250m to go, the lead was down to a third of a length and GB now
turned on the turbo chargers, eating up the lead with every stroke.
With 20 strokes to go they were level and nothing was going to stop
them.
GB took an amazing 2.78 seconds out of the pacesetters in that last
500m to win in 6min 06.57sec.
The Aussies took silver, with France another two-thirds of a length
back in bronze, followed by Slovenia, the Czechs and the Germans.
Reed said: "The biggest thing of the finish for me was TJ (Tom James)
shouting 'Yeah' in the bowseat, 'We're getting them' with 300 metres to
go.
"And then I said to myself, 'Right, let's not settle for silver,
let's have the gold, let's do them'.
"This is so special, I'll remember it my whole life. I can't get
enough of seeing Hodgey and TJ and Steve with that big gold medal round
their necks."
After hugging his Olympic champion son, dad Leo said: "When they
crossed the line, we were about six inches off the ground. We were all
hugging each other, it was superb."
Mum Sue added: "This week's been like nothing else, surreal. One day
we're in Gloucestershire at home, next morning we're in Beijing
thousands of miles away watching my son, who has done nothing but
prepare himself for the last four years for winning the Olympic title.
"In the first part of the race we were straining to hear the
commentator because the Aussie fans next to us were roaring their heads
off that they were in the lead.
"Then when they came into sight with 500m to go, and were stepping up
the pace, the GB fans erupted, and we were all on our feet shouting.
"They had to pull out all the stops, but they showed real guts and
great mental strength to win through and I'm so happy."
Leo added: "He's going to come back and do London in four years and
hopefully win a second gold. And, however stressful, we'll be there." |
