CRACKNELL’S COMING HOME...TO KGS!

We are delighted and excited to announce that double Olympic gold-medal winning oarsman James Cracknell OBE will be returning to Kingston Grammar School in September, as our new Director of Rowing.

With an extraordinary career on the water that includes winning gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2004 Athens Olympics, six world titles and victory as part of the Cambridge crew in the 2019 Boat Race, where he was the oldest athlete to ever compete. James is also a veteran endurance athlete, having competed in the Atlantic Rowing Race to raise money for Children in Need, the London and New York Marathons, the Amundsen Race to the South Pole and the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara Desert. James is currently Men’s Head Coach at Vesta Rowing Club in London and has previously held a coaching position at Cambridge University Boat Club.

James took up rowing almost by chance after watching the KGS Boat Club in action whilst fielding in a school cricket match but soon gained selection for the Junior World Championships, going on to win gold in 1990 followed by the Senior World Championships in 1997. He’s now coming home, to where it all began, and cannot wait to get started.

James said, “KGS is a special place. A fully co-educational school in a great town by the Thames, with its own boathouse on one of the best stretches of water in the country. It is wonderful to be returning as Director of Rowing and I am excited about having the opportunity to work with the students, showing them that the skills required to perform in rowing will help them to perform academically and vice versa. More than that, it will be a lot of fun and will enrich their school experience, as it did mine.”

Head Master Stephen Lehec added, “Having learned to row from the RC Sherriff Boathouse at KGS, we are absolutely thrilled to welcome James home, where he will coach the next generation of athletes at Kingston Grammar School. We look forward to seeing him inspire our students in much the same way as he was inspired as a student at Kingston Grammar School.”

For further information please contact:
Eleanor Attley, Head of Marketing
[email protected]