Stephen Rowbotham – Olympic Rower

This week I speak to Stephen Rowbotham, a British rower. Born in the West Country, tennis and rugby were always his sports as a boy. Stephen lived in Belgium and Spain as a teenager and then went to Durham University to do Economics, which is where he started to row.

After three years, Stephen was in the Great Britain u23 squad and in 2004 he was selected for Athens Olympics. Six weeks before the Games he was dropped and singled out for poor performance of the boat. Four years later he was standing on the medal podium in Beijing with an Olympic Bronze medal around my neck.

In today’s conversation, Stephen opens up about what it was like to be dropped from the boat so close to the games and what motivated him to get back up and make it to the Beijing Olympics.

As always, please do share your feedback and thank you for listening.