ROWING: Former Oxford Blue and Olympic Gold medalist Andrew Triggs Hodge believes that home support will help push Team GB’s to greater glory this summer.
The 32-year-old quad skulls rower from Cowley is ramping up his training ahead of squad selection in March. Fresh back from an elite high altitude training camp in South Africa, Andrew said he was determined to bag his second gold medal in front of British fans this summer at the London Games.
“I am fitter and stronger than I have ever been,” he said. “On the face of it I can hold my head up, but between now and the Olympics we have a lot of work to do. This is the time to build on the hard work we put in before and try and find some more speed.”
In South Africa the 6ft 3ins heavyweight rower was put through his paces with hours of rowing machine training, bike rides, and 100kg weight sessions. He said in his 11-year Team GB career, the January training camp was the toughest he had experienced.
“Basically if you could walk at the end of it you had not trained hard enough,” he said. “It was a brutal, brutal camp, normally we expect some leniency in the training to let us recover but this time around it just kept going and going. Even a week after getting back I still could feel the training in me.”
With just over 170 days until the opening ceremony in London, Andrew said he is determined to beat the world’s best oarsmen to gold.
“On the start line it won’t be that much different to a normal race, but crossing the finish line will be enormously different, the home crowd changes everything,” he said. “The feeling that you have a lot more support is definitely there. In and around Oxford there are more and more people starting to talk about the Olympics. That really gives me a buzz because when you hear that you really feel the nation is behind you, and with that you always train harder.”
Joining Andrew in pushing for a seat will be Wheatley-based women’s quad skull rower Frances Houghton. The 31-year-old, who learnt how to row at the Dragon School on Bardwell Road, said taking gold in London would be the highlight of her 16-year rowing career after narrowly missing out on the top spot with silver medals in Athens and Beijing.
“At the time you are on a lake and there to do a job and make the boat go fast, it is very clinical,” she said, looking ahead to August’s races. “But afterward when you look back on it and realise what you where a part of and knowing what you achieved, that’s a very special feeling.”
