Comeback "Kid" Searle Rows for Gold.

Greg Searle’s eyes light up at the thought of training when his breath forms a plume in the cold air, going out on to the water when it is barely light and ice still floats upon the surface, and of the pain at the end of another two kilometre race.

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This week he has the chance of winning a world championships medal in New Zealand in the GB eights, maybe even a gold. He is, as far as his teammates are concerned, the new kid on the block, having only broken into the crew this year. Except, of course, Greg Searle is anything but the new kid.

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Now 38 years young the man who took gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics alongside his elder brother Jonny and cox Gary Herbert (now the emotional BBC rowing commentator) in an unforgettable coxed pairs final is back in love with a sport in which he started to excel in 20 years ago.�

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World gold and silver medals in the coxless fours, and a bronze in the single sculls followed his Catalan feats, as well as a disappointing bronze in the fours at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and a gut-wrenching fourth place at the Sydney 2000 Olympics alongside Ed Coode in a race they led until metres from the finish. Coode would taste gold four years’ later in Athens alongside Matthew Pinsent who clinched his fourth Olympic title but for an exhausted, shattered Searle, that was it.

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A job as a behavioural development consultant and a short spell as a “grinder” for the British America’s Cup team followed for a while until, commentating for the BBC at last year’s world championships in Poznan, something happened.

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“Obviously knowing that London would be staging the Olympics in 2012 was very exciting but what got me going was watching British rowing faring so well in Poland last year and suddenly, after nine years out of the sport, the juices started to flow again,” Searle explains.

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“Also, I must have had five different chats with five different rowers in Poznan who all told me that they had been inspired by our gold in 1992 and the dramatic nature of our victory. I felt fresh – don’t forget I hadn’t had the gruelling day-to-day existence of rowers for nine years – and motivated. Suddenly London became an unmissable goal. The next day I returned home and started training.”

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Nevertheless, to be selected for the men’s eights at the world championships less than a year later by the unsentimental head coach, Jurgen Grobler, has been an incredible achievement for all his pedigree. But, as Steve Redgrave proved before on his way to winning a fifth Olympic gold medal aged also 38, if you are good enough you are, in the case of Redgrave and now Searle, young enough.

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“Once you’re in the boat it doesn’t matter if you’re 18, 28 or, in my case, 38. You’re in on merit which is the only way it should be.

“Of course, I’ve had to answer a lot of questions, many of which have been asked by me. It’s been 20 years since I first burst on to the scene by winning gold in Barcelona. People were understandably unsure about whether I could turn back time after so long out, and at my age. People were wondering whether a guy who used to be a pretty successful sportsman was about to make a fool of himself.

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“I knew I still had it, technically, but the big question was did I still have it physically and mentally. I believed I did, but belief is not the same as delivery.

“What’s happened is that I’ve been able to relive my youth again. I feel like that kid again in the run up to the 1992 Olympics, scoring marks again on the rowing machine I’m not supposed to be doing and holding down a highly competitive seat in the eights.”

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That kid came into rowing partly on the back of what Steve Redgrave and Andy Holmes achieved in winning gold in the coxless pairs at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which makes last week’s news of Holmes’s death at just 51 years of age of suspected Weil’s disease that much more poignant.

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“I didn’t know Andy personally because my time in British rowing started just as his finished,” Searle says. “But he showed the way for us that British rowers could win gold. It’s obviously terrible news to hear down here in New Zealand what’s happened and I really feel for his young family. He was a very tough competitor who got most out of what he had.”

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Which is a similar description, of course, of Searle himself. “I want to win gold at the world rowing championships but the real goal for all of us is to win gold at the 2012 London Olympics,” he confirms.

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Despite his age the break away from rowing has worked wonders for him. “If I’d carried on after Sydney and gone on to Athens it would have felt like just doing the same thing again and again. It would have turned into a job, not a vocation. Having the break, and having the goal of 2012, makes me realise how much I’ve missed the sport, and how good it is to be back.

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“Much has changed whilst I’ve been away. Rowing’s been strong for a while but nothing like it is now with the depth of talent, the financial support from the National Lottery and from Siemens and the facilities we have at our disposal. Getting back into the British squad was a great deal harder than I had planned for, so good is the competition these days.

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“I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to be rowing alongside people who are half my age and tell me that I helped to inspire them.

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“Of course, I also get tons of stick for being so old from everyone else and it’s all justified because for many I’m old enough to be their father. But, once we’re in the boat, all our focus is channelled into winning.”

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First comes a stab at the world title this week down under but then, in under two years’ time now, comes the big one.

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Can Greg Searle really win an Olympic gold medal at 40 years of age?

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The smile that has remained on his face for the past half an hour disappears. “I’m not doing this to get a t-shirt,” he replies. “I want another Olympic gold medal and I have one, unexpected chance to get it.”����

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