Sir Steve Redgrave is set to miss the Olympics for the first time in 40 years after not making it to the final round of interviews at British rowing and no longer being part of the BBC coverage.
The 62-year-old won gold medals at five successive Olympic Games between 1984 to 2000, plus a bronze medal at the 1988 Olympics in Los Angeles. After winning his final gold, Redgrave retired from rowing.
Since quitting the sport, Redgrave has run the London Marathon, starred in Top Gear for Sport Relief and launched his own brand of clothing called FiveG. As well as this, Redgrave has worked as a pundit for the BBC at Olympic Games and assumed the high-level performance director role for the Chinese Rowing Association.
However, Redgrave’s work with the BBC has dried up since 2006, even though former crew-mate Matthew Pinsent is still a mainstay in their coverage. Explaining why he is no longer a regular for the BBC, Redgrave told the Daily Mail: “I wasn’t told that I’ve been discontinued, but it’s sort of evolved.
“Matt is the presenter and Katherine Grainger is the equivalent to what I was doing. The three of us worked together at the World Championships the year after Rio, but then they went, ‘Male-female, covered on Olympic medals, why have three ?’. Working for China at the last Games probably didn’t help matters.”
Redgrave joined the China rowing team in 2018 and took them from 16th in the medal table in Rio to joint-sixth in Tokyo three years ago. He was due to stay there until Paris this summer, but left in December 2022 after finding it difficult to visit and see family with the Covid-19 restrictions.
Before his departure in November 2021, Redgrave applied for a director role at British rowing. However, Redgrave did not make it to the final round of interviews.
“I’m disappointed that I couldn’t give my skills to helping the team,” he added. “I felt that I was in a position to be able to help with the experience of my career, and the experience of being out in China, taking them from nowhere on the Olympic medal table to sixth, well ahead of the British team.
“I felt that I was the right person at the right time to do that. Obviously, the powers at British Rowing didn’t think that was the case. But saying that, the team is in very good state going into Paris.”
Instead, as things stand, Redgrave’s only trip to Paris this summer will be a cruise through the Seine a matter of weeks before the Olympics start. “The people who go on cruises tend to be sort of my age and older, so at least they can still remember what I did,” he said.
