UK Sport’s Katherine Grainger: ‘There’s no reacting to results … it’s a far healthier conversation than that’
While there are question marks over funding after Paris, the UK Sport chair insists there will not be a kneejerk response
Joy at the prize, or dejection over the what if? It’s the conundrum of the silver medallist, a question some are probably still grappling with after their efforts at the Paris Olympic Games, one written on the faces of Josh Kerr and Matt Hudson-Smith in the immediate aftermath. Does the motivation for gold transform into obsession after a near miss?
“It’s different for every single athlete,” says Dame Katherine Grainger, a five-time Olympic medallist in rowing and now chair of UK Sport. “I won a silver where it was the greatest thing ever, my first medal,” she says, recalling success at Sydney 2000 in the women’s quadruple sculls.