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Losing.

I could have written a blog last year entitled "winning". This year, sadly, it is the opposite. I'm not going to sit and whinge about this being the worst result for my boat - the women's quadruple scull - since so and so, or my worst result since such and such.
This is not a list of statistics or a reeling off of clichés: this is a description of what it is like to lose, and how you deal with it.

The times and the race reports - in essence, at this World Championships in Bled, Slovenia, we came third in a close race in our heat and thus had to race a to attempt to reach the final. Again in the rep we came third in a close race and ended up having to contest the B-final for positions seven to 12 overall, with only one slot available to qualify a boat for the Olympics next year.

So in the space of five days we went from having high hopes of defending the world title , to having to scrap to gain the last Olympic qualifying spot and then to sit on the river bank to watch the Germans cross the line first in the A final, whooping and cheering.

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