“We were in the lead for six minutes and then got overtaken in the last second. “Beijing was a different experience,” she says. Two years later, she won her second Olympic silver in Beijing in the quadruple sculls with Grainger, Houghton and Annie Vernon.įlood cried as she was awarded her medal as she was “gutted” at missing the gold medal by just seconds. This was later elevated to gold when the Russian crew failed a drugs test. The following year, Flood completed her university degree and in 2006 she won silver at the world championships in the quadruple sculls with Houghton, Sarah Winckless and Katherine Grainger. You do life together and share the ups and downs.” “One of my best races and some of my best mates - we still have a WhatsApp group. She decided to try again for the 2004 Greece Olympics and joined Leander Club.įour years later, Flood won her first Olympic silver medal in Athens in the women’s quadruple sculls with Houghton, Rebecca Romero and Alison Mowbray. “That was important as it was hard for me to fit in anywhere and I made so many friends and people were looking after me.” “I was really accepted by athletes,” said Flood. She made the Olympic team as a spare but remembers the experience fondly. I didn’t know anything about full-time sport, I didn’t really know it was something you could continue to do. “What was supposed to be two years of rowing full-time turned into three. She competed in the single sculls at Henley that same year and realised that she could become an elite rower.įlood says: “I thought, ‘Actually, I’m off to a good start’ and I carried on from there. She also won the single sculls national title rowing for Tideway Scullers School in London at the 2000 national championships. She won a gold in the double sculls with Houghton at the world under-23 championships in 1999 and in 2000 won gold in the single sculls. She also enrolled at Reading University to study physiology and biochemistry with a view to becoming a veterinary surgeon. She then decided to move to Caversham, where the GB rowers train, so she could try to make the team for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He quickly recognised her potential.Īt age 17, Flood took part in the 1998 world junior championships, winning bronze in the double sculls with Frances Houghton.
“In the end it wasn’t going to happen with judo but someone at the gym noticed I was strong on the rowing machine and my dad said maybe that was a good thing to do.”įlood took a week-long rowing course at Eton College, where she says she spent the whole week “swimming” as she kept falling into the water.ĭespite this, she peservered and then met Mark Banks, who was chief coach of the Leander Club in Henley for two decades until this year. I liked karate as well but got serious about judo and I thought, ‘I’m going to do this and go the Olympics’. “My dad took me to judo and I started using the rowing machine in training for that. She says: “As I grew up, I was good at running and raced for my school but as I got older and bigger I knew it wasn’t going to be the sport that was going to take me to the Olympics. She was also a county level 1500m and cross-country runner and shot-putter.
When Flood was seven she got into karate and judo and became a Great Britain junior judo international. “I loved running and joined clubs and I used to watch Olympians on the television and think they were like super-humans another world away.”
My first was an Easter egg run and because I was so small we set off early but no one ever caught us up as we were so fast. “I was doing fun runs when I was three, holding my dad’s hand. She is originally from Harrogate and fell in love with sport as a child.įlood says: “My dad was a marathon runner and my mum loved pottering around in the back yard and keeping fit, so my younger brother Barry and I naturally did a lot of sport. Flood, who retired from rowing in 2012, lives in Henley with her husband Jaco Bruwer, 38, theirġ8-month old daughter and her two stepchildren.
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