Rachel Cawthorn

Ok, so the Olympics may have finished nearly 2 months ago, but time seems to be doing something funny over the last few weeks. Here, at last, is my version of events!
The Games were absolutely incredible. I am so proud of what GB pulled out the bag, from all the amazing volunteers, the athletes and all the amazing support from the general public, whether watching at the venues, at home, the announcements on the train or in shops………
The final build up to the games went well for me; we spent the last 2 weeks training in Spain, just outside Barcelona. Almost guaranteed hot weather and good water conditions meant we could get a really productive last block of training in. Although we were concentrating mainly on the K4, (which improved so much during the 6 weeks since the euros) my K1 training also felt like it was coming together, and I was really looking forward to racing.
We left Barcelona (very early!) on the morning of the Opening Ceremony. Had a very excited welcome from the volunteers at Heathrow, before heading home for a quick nap and food. The 24hours that followed were some of the most surreal and brilliant and incredible of my life!
We were driven into the Olympic Village, already getting overly excited about everything, and were dropped off outside our block. We walked up 8 flights of stairs to get to our apartment, and then spent 10 minutes all running around the place exploring. We had an incredible view over the park from our balcony. We explored the village, the shop, hairdressers, nail salon, visited team GB house for a quick press conference, and then were completely wowed by the dining hall. It was massive! With ever type of food you could think of, ready to cater for athletes from around the world.

Before we had a chance to calm ourselves down it was time to get ready for the opening ceremony. Giggling at each other’s gold and white outfit we realised we even had special socks to wear! We joined the rest of team GB outside, and I think the opening ceremony outfits looked really striking when we were all together. We spent the majority of the ceremony waiting outside, but that didn’t matter, the anticipation and excitement from the team was palpable, helped by the cheering kiddies lining the way! The welcome from the crowd on our entrance into the stadium was one of my most memorable moments of the games, I think Louisa and myself may have been spotted jumping around like crazy on TV by our friends!
The next morning (after a quick Hello to Her Majesty The Queen!) we packed up and headed back home for a couple of rest days before moving into our own Olympic accommodation at Oakley Court. We spent the first week of the games adjusting to our slightly busier-than-normal home training ground of Dorney Lake, acclimatising to our new accommodation, and getting in a handful of final prep training sessions. We were sharing Oakley Court with the GB Rowing team, and it was a really privilege watch their success on one of their finals days.
By Monday morning the waiting game was up. K4 heats and semis first, and we made it through to our first Olympic final  We had to make some last minute adjustments to our race plan, because the other girls couldn’t hear my normal mid-race calls over the thundering noise of the crowd! My K1 Heat the next morning also went to plan, but the real highlight was my semi-final, I finished 2nd in a very tight race and qualified for my second Olympic final.
In the Finals we finished 5th in the K4 and I was 6th in my K1. I’m chuffed with both results (but such close races always leave you the feeling of “if we could have just gone this much faster…” (holds finger and thumb 2 inches apart)!) It feels so strange to suddenly be finished, it’s hard to know what to feel, but we are all very proud of how we handled ourselves and performed throughout the whole experience. I also found it impossible not to be inspired by the games. Some of the performances we witnessed over the 2 weeks were incredible, and I enjoyed racing immensely.
Ok, now on with the Thank you’s, (brace yourself, there are a lot!) Thank you first to my coach Brendan Purcell, and also Miklos Simon and Trevor Hunter, obviously wouldn’t be here with out your help, thanks to Katherine for keeping me together and also Kate and Michael and Ginny. BIG thank you to Mum and Dad for being my biggest support team at every step of the way. Thanks to Jonnie for being great  and to Louisa, Angela, Jess, Abi, Lani and Hayleigh. Thank you to every single one of you incredible volunteers, your infectious smiley faces really did make the Games. Thank you Nelo and Jantex for your support and incredible service. Thanks to every person who ever bought a lottery ticket, to the friendly boat drivers at Oakley court (who let me drive one time shh!), our personal plain clothed police people for keeping us safe, the people who said good luck to me on the train, Tom and Hattie and Ellie, all my family, friends, old teachers, every canoeing-person and anyone else who cheered for me!

Now all that excitement is over I am enjoying a bit of down time and more relaxed training. As I mentioned, it was impossible not to be inspired by the games, so I definitely have Rio in mind. 4 years is a long time though, and there will be many other races and challenges along the way, but I’m up for them  and am looking forward to get stuck back into training again.

Last Wednesday I headed over to Richmond to take part in Vicki Anstey’s Barreworks class. The GB women’s squad and our physiotherapist, Katherine Ready, lined up around the dance studio and pretended to be ballerina’s for an hour! (Not the most elegant of ballerinas maybe, but I tried!). Using the ballet barre as a basis (or support half the time!) we were put through a “complete body work out”. It was a really tough session, my muscles were burning from the start! Very enjoyable though and I felt great after. The idea is the core stability, flexibility and balance gained will help with preventing injuries and maintaining a good technique when racing. I’m certainly keen to go back again!

For more info visit www.barreworks.co.uk

I was really excited to go back to my old club to help out with the under 14 paddlers last week. The group has been put together almost single handedly by Pam Jameison, and I was keen to pop back to lend a hand. I gave them a few pointers and went out on the water with them. I joined in a few races and then hopped into a k4 with them too! That was great fun, I tried to give them a taste of how fast our arms go around when we race the GB boat. Think they were quite surprised about how wet they got! It was great to see all their enthusiasm and so much potential. Maybe I was paddling with a few future Olympians! Thanks to all the kids and Pam for letting me come along. Hope to come back again soon!

So it’s taken me a while to update this, but I’ve been having a very busy time enjoying a bit of time off at the end of the season!

World Champs went rather well I focused on the K4, as if we managed to qualify this, the seriously complicated and confusing qualification rules meant that  we would be able to send 4 athletes to the games, to race any events (including the K1 500m). Our K4 heat was first thing on the first day of racing, and by winning our heat we qualified straight for the final, which meant we were almost guaranteed our Olympic qualification. The final was the best K4 race I’ve ever been in. We really attacked the start and were almost leading the race for the first half! Unfortunately we just weren’t quite as strong as some of the other crews, who overtook us in the second half, and we finished 4th by 0.072 seconds! It was disappointing not to medal after such a close race, but we were pretty chuffed to have pulled out our best race when it really mattered. And we qualified 4 places for the Olympic games

I also raced the 500 in my K1, and finished 12th. I was frustrated not to have made the A final, 12th is not quite where I’d really like to have finished, but after the last years training (I missed a large chunk due to illness, and there were times when I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to racing) I was pleased to be in the race and not be too far off the mark!

World Champs were over, but instead of enjoying a bit of time off, I headed out to Portugal to race at the Nelo Summer Challenge (not that that wasn’t great fun!) We enjoyed the outstanding Nelo hospitality, to cap off a year of second-to-none support . We raced a long distance 10k downwind (that’s long distance to me anyway!) surf ski race off the coast of Povoa de Varzim, and then a shorter race starting and finishing on the beach. I was quite glad that the conditions were a bit nicer for beginners this year!

The following weekend was the London Olympic Test Event at on our home training lake of Dorney. This was the first time I’ve ever raced an international race at home, so it was a bit of a new experience! It was exciting to have paddlers from all over the world come to visit us. And it was a great taste of what the set up will be like at the Games next year. With the great help from all the volunteers the regatta went very smoothly, and racing on home waters (in front of a bit of a crowd!) was good fun too.

Getting back into the swing of things now after a bit of time away. Still pretty sore from gym at the mo (!) but really excited about the year ahead… not long to go now!! Bring it on!

(Photo by AE Edmonds)

I was really honoured last week to be invited back to my old school, George Abbot, in Guildford, to join in the attempt at breaking the world record for the largest human Olympic logo.  And we did it! 1900 of us broke the record of 1222 set in Beijing in 2008. The event also marked the end of the Surrey County Council’s P&G Surrey School Games 100 days of sport, and 400 days to go ‘til the games next year. Big thanks to Paul Ainslie, Phil Harrison and everyone else involved in the organisation of the day. It went swimmingly! (except for the huge downpour of rain which soaked everyone just whilst we were breaking the record!). It was great to be a part of, and cool to see some of my old teachers too!

Was really pleased to be racing at the 2^nd and 3^rd  World cups this year (even if they were a good few weeks ago now!). Can’t say I had the best preparation leading into them, so I was extremely chuffed (and very surprised!) when I won Bronze in Racice, and then was 4^th in Duisburg. Racice was a particularly good regatta for our girls team; every boat won a medal, and we finished top of the leader board.  It was great to get back racing again, and catch up with lots of guys I hadn’t seen since last summer.

Next up Euros! Out in the super hotness of Belgrade this time (which made for very fast times!). My heat went well, I came first and qualified straight through to  the final (which meant I had a day off in the middle of the regatta which was quite strange!). My final didn’t go quite to plan. I had a large clump of weed just in front of my start bucket, which I then paddled straight through…:-p Learnt a lot from the racing though, and I was really glad to get out there again. (Also, must say thanks to Nelo for your help at all 3 regattas my boat has never been so clean!)

Back home now, and in the midst of a super hard training block! 3 more weeks at home, before heading out to Hungary for a couple of weeks on training camp and then the World Championships!