Pinsent in Awe of Cracknell's Rapid Recovery

For so many glorious years James Cracknell stared at Sir Matthew Pinsent’s back in a boat as the celebrated rowers took gold after gold after gold at Olympic Games and world championships.

For the past few months, however, Pinsent, the four-time Olympic champion, has been watching his partner’s back as a concerned and supportive friend after Cracknell’s horrific accident last July in Arizona when out cycling and filming a documentary for the Discovery Channel. A truck’s wing mirror smacked the back of the double Olympic champion’s head at 75mph. It should, by rights have killed him. Miraculously, it did not.

Instead Cracknell ran last Sunday’s London Marathon in a time just over three hours, even though he still suffers from some brain damage after injuring the frontal lobes of his brain. In the same field of runners was Pinsent, who crossed the finish line in just over four hours, and was staggered to see his long-time friend and partner fare so well.�

“If you’d told me as I walked towards the hospital in Phoenix where James was nine months ago that we’d both be running the London Marathon I would have said that it was a big, big call,” is how he puts it and he is right, because Pinsent, like the rest of the sporting world, was preparing for close to the worst. “I’d brought with me some rowing books to show James that this is what he once did, and very well,” he explains. “I had no idea what to expect. It was only three weeks after the incident. I’d spoken to James’s wife, Bev, on the phone the day after James was injured and all she could tell me was that he’d had a terrible accident and was in intensive care with a brain injury. Well, that’s not good, is it?”

At least he was alive, as Cracknell, listening to his friend and former partner with intent, readily acknowledges. “The people who made the difference were the paramedics,” he says. “They sedated me very quickly. They knew that if I’d had a seizure the consequences would have been massive.�

“It was extraordinary that, apart from a fractured foot, there were no other injuries save to my brain. I still have the helmet back at home. It’s got a huge split at the back but is still intact, although the insides have gone. That’s because they had to scoop bits of my head out of it.”

He delivers this alarming statement with a wry smile. His humour, as Pinsent confirms, has played its part in his amazing recovery to date.�

“I knew James would be OK in hospital when he started taking the mickey out of his own predicament. Since then I haven’t reminded James because I know how much it has affected his life, other than take the p**s, as he would to me.”

What Pinsent did do, however, is invite his old partner out in a boat again last September to row together for the first time since the Athens Olympics in 2004. “It was good exercise for us both and I wanted to drag James out of the house because he hadn’t been able to do a great deal with himself up to then. It was back at our old stamping ground, the Leander Club in Henley, and it was a special moment for the both of us.”

Cracknell remembers the day well. “It was just so good to get out on the water and have time to reflect a little and enjoy the air,” he explains. “The doctors told me that with bleeding frontal lobes I was a day away from never seeing my kids again. That gives you a greater appreciation of every day you spend on this earth.�

“We’d had a tough time, especially Bev. She found out in hospital as she sat by my side that she was pregnant with our third child, and when we left the doctors told us, as a parting shot, that 75% of marriages end in divorce if one or the other has brain damage.”

The ensuing months have been tough for the physically active Cracknell. Up until recently, for example, he was a danger to his own children and not allowed to be left on his own with them.

“That hurt a lot,” he admits. “It was because I lacked any peripheral vision, which is what you need all the time with kids. So I’d leave a kitchen knife or a hot pot on the side and I couldn’t be trusted. Thankfully that’s got better in recent weeks.”So too, he hopes, has his driving. Last week he took a test at the DVLA to see if he could regain his licence. He says it went well and expects his licence back in the next few weeks.�

But there are still major problems for the 38-year-old and he has no real idea how much, if at all, they will clear up. “I did a cycle race in the Yukon the other month but unlike before there were strict parameters concerning my sleep,” he says. “A lack of sleep could lead to a seizure. At the very least that would mean I couldn’t drive for a year but, of course, the effects could be a lot, lot worse than that.

“I’m also frustrated that I can’t juggle complex issues any more. For example, I never used to keep a diary. I never needed to. Now everything has to be written down. I’m anxious about the future as well. I have nothing planned work-wise after the Marathon because I do not know what I’m capable of doing yet. The doctors tell me that my final state will be determined two years after the accident. So far we’re up to nine months and I’m doing pretty well, but I’m a work in progress and I hope there’s plenty more improvement to come.” � �

Pinsent is in awe of how his friend has come through these harrowing few months. “James’s brain has been putting the jigsaw back together and it’s done a pretty good job so far,” he adds. “He’s always had an extraordinary level of fitness and his determination remains undimmed. Yes, he’s been lucky, for sure, but James has also done brilliantly adopting the same approach that he did in a boat. Point him in a direction, and he will go to wherever he has to.”

Cracknell is equally respectful of the support he has received from the 40-year-old knight of the realm. “Matt’s the Godfather to my son, Croyde, and although he’s not a super-emotional man he has a high moral compass in the way he leads his life and how he approaches those close to him, and that’s unusual for a sportsman of his calibre when you have to be so single-minded in becoming a champion.”

Both recognise the positives of the last few months, and of today’s race, especially Cracknell, whose wife Bev gave birth to their third child, Trixie, only last week. “I have three children, a home, a beautiful wife, two Olympic gold medals, and most of my health,” he reasons. “There are many people worse off than me, especially those with damaged brains. My life may have changed irrevocably, but at least I’m still here.”

He smiles and then reveals an old, familiar side of James Cracknell. “And there was no way Pinsent was going to beat me in the marathon, either.”�

James Cracknell ran for Headway, and Matthew Pinsent ran for the Alzheimer’s Society.��� ��