The 1988 Olympic Games
[written by Joanne Gough]
21st September, 5:30 am
The coach sped through the pre-dawn darkness, complete with police escort
flashing blue lights down the empty roads. This was it at last - the day the
British Women's Coxed Four had a chance for a place in an Olympic final. Now we
had to prove that we were capable of everything we'd dreamed and boasted about.
Steve Gunn, our coach, was confident. I knew we were
fast enough, but still the dread of failure sat in the back of my mind ...
8:20 am
At last we were getting the boat out to race and trying not to look at the
Canadians and Poles on the next jetty. The Bulgarians, we knew, were too fast
for us, and we had to come second of four to make the final. The boat went
beautifully in the warm-up, as it had done every time we'd rowed in the last
few weeks. In no time at all we were backing onto the starting gate.
Photo:
Jo Gough (stroke)
and Kate Grose, the GB women's coxless pair for
the 1990 World Championships