In 1997, Katherine was elected as the President of the Edinburgh University Boat Club and was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame at the University in 1998. There she showed she was destined for the biggest stage - and that was what duly followed. Katherine first appeared at World Championship level in Aiguebelette, where she participated in the women's eight.
She helped the team to a bronze medal and her performances both then and over the next three years would book her a highly coveted place at Sydney 2000. She joined the Quadruple Sculls team alongside Guin Batten, Miriam Batten and Gillian Lindsay, where they would run Germany close to the line, taking a silver medal home from her debut Olympic Games in Sydney.
After winning gold in the coxless pair in the World Championships in Milan in 2003, alongside Cath Bishop, the duo competed in the same event at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. There, Katherine added her second Olympic silver to her collection. She would then play a significant role in a formidable Quadruple Sculls team, winning The Rowing World Cup in 2005, 2006 and 2007, before taking silver in the competition at Beijing 2008.
Despite an already glittering career and medal cabinet, she was only going to go from strength to strength in 2009 and beyond, to cement her legacy as one of rowing's true greats. After winning a silver medal in the Single Scull in Poznan in the 2009 World Championships, she and Anna Watkins would go on to capture the imagination of the British people in the years that followed.
In the build-up to London 2012, the duo took gold at the 2010 and 2011 World Championships, setting the stage for their crowning moment. On home turf, at the London Olympic Games 2012, Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins qualified for the Quadruple Sculls final with a record-breaking Olympic time. After stunning the home crowd, they went on to win gold, in one of the biggest triumphs in British rowing.
Katherine would go on to compete at Rio 2016 where she added another silver medal to increase her tally to five Olympic medals, joining Kathleen McKane Godfree as the most decorated British female Olympian of all time. Since stepping down from professional rowing, Katherine has become Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University and Chair of UK Sport. As an Olympic speaker she is able to expertly capture the highs and lows, as well as inspire and educate audiences on the intensive training needed to succeed in rowing.
