Team GB gold medallist Imogen Grant reveals plan to swap Olympics triumph for brand new job in just 11 days
IMOGEN Grant will be walking the wards of Slough’s Wexham Park Hospital in 11 days’ time.
Grant will swap her “inevitable” Olympic gold medal for a stethoscope as she begins her career as a junior foundation doctor.
And as Grant and partner Emily Craig signed off as reigning lightweight double sculls champions for life – with the class being abolished after these Games – she did not seem to have even elevated her own pulse.
As expected, after three years of dominance, Team GB’s golden girls romped to a comprehensive victory, leading from the gun and cruising home a length clear of Romania to bring home the second gold and sixth medal.
It was the ultimate, unquestioned and outstanding response to the heartbreak they experienced in Tokyo three years ago, when they finished fourth by one HUNDREDTH of a second and only half a tick off the TOP of the podium.
Grant admitted: “We’d gone 23 races unbeaten with pretty much the only result that was left us to achieve.
“That was pressure but also gave us confidence.
“We knew we had to go out and do something that we’ve done multiple times before.
“Not pull something out of thin air but just carry out the race plan that we had.
“What happened in Tokyo was part of our story. This Olympics was the grand finale.
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“Not every Olympian gets it right on the first try.
“After Tokyo we put in so much work and we are such different and better people this time round. There was a certain inevitability to this.
“We knew we were capable of it. We have a call coming in and out of the 1km mark and I remember thinking, ‘Right, this is the time to make everyone else pay for it for trying to stick with us in the first half’.
“That’s what we did. Was that mean? Yeah!”
From golden glory, Grant will have just a few days to celebrate before her new reality strikes.
Cambridge-born Grant, 28, explained: “We’ve got a week of watching some amazing sport here and then I start work two days after the closing ceremony as a foundation doctor in Slough.
“It’s going to be a bit of a hard bump back down to earth for me but I’m really excited to start work as a doctor.”
Like her partner, Craig, 31, was still on a high – although she collapsed in floods of tears on the podium – just as she had anticipated.
Craig said: “Ugly crying on international television – super!
“But I’m not surprised. Every time I’ve thought about the moment, it’s brought me to tears, and I’ve had to try and not think about the moment for a very long time.
“I have a picture of us from the finish in Tokyo in my flat and have used that as inspiration ever since.
“The race went by in a blur. I only remember some of it – and rowing really hard.”
Both are now enshrined in the Olympic history books, agreeing it is “pretty cool” they will be reigning champions at the event for ever.
In its place in Los Angeles will be a beach sprint ocean rowing event – and that is a potential temptation for Grant.
She added: “It wouldn’t have been my choice to get rid of lightweight rowing but that decision has been made and rowing has to evolve with the times.
“I’ve made a promise to myself that I’ve got to at least try beach sprints before I have an opinion on it, because some of the racing looks really fast and furious.
“It’s going to be a massive spectacle in LA. As a sport we should embrace that.”
Earlier, there was a near-miss silver for men’s pair Ollie Wynne Griffiths and Tom George as they were overtaken by Croatia’s sibling duo Martin and Valent Simkovic in the final few yards after leading throughout.
The Brits, “best mates” since they went to school together in Oxfordshire, caught a small crab near the end just as the Croatians went past them.
George said: “We had the perfect race, from start, pretty much to finish and to be that close is really special.
“It hurts a lot now to not get it in the last three strokes but this has been a hell of a journey for us.”
Wynne-Griffiths added: “There wasn’t anything else we could’ve done. In the last two World Championships finals we’ve not put ourselves in a position where we could win in the first half and then chased back hard to save a medal.
“We learned from those races. We took a risk in the first half and wanted to grab it by the scruff of the neck.
“Unfortunately we came up three or four strokes short. But we wanted to race for a gold medal and put ourselves out there and that’s what we did.”