Steve Redgrave: An Indian Summer in Sydney

Prompted by the recent Indian summers enjoyed by the likes of Shaquille O'Neal and Kurt Warner, Bleacher contributors were asked to reflect on individuals who had produced exceptional performances in spite of their advanced years.

Not one to pass up a challenge, I quickly realized that the task at hand required me to look beyond my comfort zone of the English Premier League. 

Of course, there are many older players, both past and present, worthy of consideration (my first contribution to these very pages focused on the omnipotent Ryan Giggs), but I could not quite put my finger on that one individual who, unencumbered by the onset of the dreaded mid-30s (or beyond), had truly captured my imagination.

An obvious candidate, perhaps, is David Beckham.  Certainly, his recent renaissance—both at club and international level—is worthy of praise. 

However, at 33 years old, Beckham is not quite at an age to capture the spirit in which this assignment was given.  Real though it is, Beckham’s Indian summer should be viewed through the lens of his premature departure from the rigor of elite European football, rather than his advancing years.

Instead, I have chosen to recall the exploits of an athlete who truly does fit the bill, and then some.

Ask any Brit to name the greatest modern day athletes and few will fail to mention Sir Steve Redgrave.

For those of you unfamiliar with the name (and I would hope that you are few and far between), Redgrave was a British rower who became one of the greatest Olympians of the Games’ long and illustrious history. 

Redgrave’s crowning achievement came in Sydney in 2000, where, at the age of 38, he won his fifth Olympic Gold.

While Sir Steve’s total career haul of five gold medals is far from unprecedented (indeed, one Michael Phelps would have been bitterly disappointed with such a return in 2008 alone!), what elevates Redgrave’s achievement to the very highest echelons of the competition is that his five were attained in five consecutive Games.

Redgrave remains the only athlete ever to have achieved this remarkable feat.

As achievements go, gold medals in Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, and Atlanta were highly commendable without necessarily being remarkable.  Taking into account his age alone (Redgrave turned 38 in March 2000), Gold at Sydney was an achievement of a different order. 

Add to that the fact that Redgrave was diagnosed with diabetes in 1997 and you begin to realize the full mark of the man.

It is also important to put Redgrave’s achievement into a national context. Historically, Great Britain does not perform strongly at the Olympics, in terms of medals.  Indeed, Team GB’s performance in Beijing was unprecedented in the post-war era. 

For example, Redgrave boasts as many as or even more gold medals than the entire British team managed to accrue in each of the ’84, ’88, ’92, and ’96 Olympics.

Redgrave’s historic achievement on Penrith Lake (Sydney) also needs to be placed in the more immediate context of an exceptionally talented crew.  In Matthew Pinsent, James Cracknell, and Tim Foster, Redgrave had the rowing equivalent of anti-aging cream.  This final gold was Redgrave’s third as part of a coxless four.

Redgrave’s place in Olympic history is secure.  Such is the scale of his achievement —Olympic Gold in five consecutive games—that many will not live to see this success equaled, let alone surpassed.