Sir Steve Redgrave: From Rowing Champion to Olympic Legend

Sir Steve Redgrave won gold at five consecutive Olympic Games, a record in endurance sport that is hard to imagine being matched. This page sets out the five golds and the bronze, the boats he won them in, how diabetes fitted into his late career, and what made it last.

The golds

• Los Angeles 1984: coxed four
• Seoul 1988: coxless pair, with Andy Holmes
• Barcelona 1992: coxless pair, with Matthew Pinsent
• Atlanta 1996: coxless pair, with Matthew Pinsent
• Sydney 2000: coxless four

He also won a bronze in the coxed pair at Seoul 1988.

Five golds at five Games means winning in 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000. That spans sixteen years in a sport where most elite careers are shorter.

Background

Redgrave was born in Marlow in 1962. He was made a CBE in 1997 and knighted in 2001.

Marlow has a strong rowing tradition on the Thames, and Redgrave came to the sport through school. Like many British rowers, he began at a club and school programme rather than a specialist academy.

Moving between boats

Redgrave raced in the coxed four, the coxless pair, the coxed pair and the coxless four. These are very different boats.

• The coxed four has a cox who steers and calls the race, so the rowers can focus on power and timing.
• The coxless pair has two rowers, one oar each, who steer by pressure or a foot-operated rudder. Nowhere to hide, and little forgiveness for a mismatch.
• The coxless four needs four rowers to move as one, with one steering by foot.

Each boat asks for slightly different skills. Winning in all of them tells you that Redgrave was adaptable, and that he understood how to fit a partner or a crew.

Partnerships

His long partnership with Matthew Pinsent produced the 1992 and 1996 golds. Pinsent was eight years younger and a different build. Great pairs are not always two athletes who look alike. The partnership worked because each understood how the other applied pressure, and they kept their rhythm through the hardest part of the race. See our profile of Matthew Pinsent.

Diabetes and the final push

Redgrave was diagnosed with diabetes in 1997 and kept racing at the top level. After Atlanta 1996 he said he would never row again, then returned for Sydney.

Managing diabetes alongside heavy training takes careful planning with medical staff. It involves monitoring blood glucose and adapting food and medication around training. If you manage a health condition, talk to your GP before building a hard training plan. This page is general information, not medical advice.

Why it is hard to match

A fifth consecutive gold needs more than talent. It needs the ability to stay healthy for 16 years, to avoid career-ending injuries, to adapt to new rivals each cycle and to find motivation when you have already won. Rowing also has a deep international field, with strong crews from Germany, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. A decade of dominance is rare. Our ranking of the top three English rowers of all time sets his record beside other greats.

What made his career last

• He adapted across boat classes, from fours to pairs and back.
• He chose partners carefully and committed to a four-year cycle.
• He built on a huge aerobic base and steady, repeated work. See how to train like an Olympic rower for the ideas behind it.
• He treated health as part of training, not an afterthought. For a very different health story from British rowing, read James Cracknell’s head injury story.

Related reading

His partnership with Pinsent is covered in our profile of Matthew Pinsent. For more, see British Olympic rowers and the Olympic rowing hub.