Kieran West

Kieran Martin West, MBE (born 18 September, 1977) is a British rower and Olympic champion.

Biography

Education

Born in Kingston upon Thames, West was educated at Dulwich College, in south-east London, before going up to Christ's College, Cambridge in 1995, to study for a BA in Economics and Land Economy, followed by a PGCE in Mathematics three years later. On graduating from his second degree he taught Mathematics at King's College School, Wimbledon for two years, before returning to his studies in 2004. Changing discipline, he first read for an MA in War Studies at King's College London, and is currently studying for a PhD in First World War Strategy and Military Intelligence at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

porting Career

Early Career

An avid sportsman at school, West was introduced to rowing by his father, Richard, and began coxing at Kingston Rowing Club aged 10. He quickly outgrew this role so took up sculling two years later. A successful schoolboy athlete, he won the National Rowing Championships in a single scull at his age category when 15 and trialled for the British under-18 rowing team a year later. Although initially successful, he suffered a severe lower back injury and was forced to retire from sport for three years to undergo intensive physiotherapy.

The Boat Race

For his first two years at Cambridge West was still rehabilitating himself back into a boat, finally being able to row again in spring 1997. After a term of rowing for his college in the May Bumps he joined the first ever development squad at the Cambridge University Boat Club that summer and trialled for the 1998 Boat Race in the winter. Although he did not make the Blue Boat, West rowed in the Goldie crew, losing to Isis after an equipment failure two-thirds of the way down the course.

The disappointment West felt on losing the Isis-Goldie Race made him determined to gain revenge the following year. He went on to represent Great Britain for the first time that summer, and made the Cambridge Blue Boat in 1999, rowing in the six seat, a position he would take in all his Cambridge crews. Considered by many to have been one of the fastest crews the Club had produced to date, Cambridge went on to win comfortably in the second fastest time in Boat Race history.

Selected to represent Great Britain once again that summer, and with the opportunity to go to his first Olympic Games, West took a year out of his studies to concentrate on his rowing. While away he was elected President of the Cambridge University Boat Club for the 2001 The Boat Race campaign. Despite having lost both the Boat Race and the Isis-Goldie Race in 2000, Cambridge comfortably beat Oxford exactly six months after West's Sydney final, with West sitting in the six seat of the Cambridge Crew. To add to the occasion, Goldie also beat Isis, giving Cambridge the clean sweep on the day, the last time this would happen for six years. West was subsequently voted 'Cambridge Sports Personality of the Year, 2000/2001'.

Although he finished at Cambridge in 2001, West remained a strong supporter of the Boat Race, believing it a fertile training ground for future British international oarsmen. So when he returned to the University in 2005 he also went back to the Boat Race.

With a dip in the Club's fortunes since 2001, West was the only member of the 2006 squad to have previously won a Boat Race. However, Cambridge were favourites for the 2006 Race. Despite good early season results, rough conditions on the day led to Cambridge taking on a significant amount of water and coming close to sinking, leaving Oxford to pull away to victory. For West, rowing again in the Cambridge six seat, it was a frustrating return.

The following year Cambridge were even stronger favourites and, with five returning members of the 2006 crew, were keen to put the record straight. After a tighter than expected early section of the race, Cambridge pulled away after twelve minutes to win. With the rules of the Boat Race stating that no athlete can participate in more than four races, this would be West's last race for Cambridge. Throughout the season the crew had been accompanied by an ethnographer, Mark De Rond, who subsequently wrote a book on the season's experiences, 'The Last Amateurs: To Hell and Back with the Cambridge Boat Race Crew'.

Although he joined the British rowing team after the 2007 Boat Race, West decided to retire from international rowing two months later to concentrate on his academic studies.

West's three wins from four Boat Races makes him one of the most successful Cambridge rowing Blues ever, after Chris Baillieu who won four from four, while the eight years between his first and last Cambridge appearances is the longest span in Boat Race history. West was also the first member of Cambridge University to win the Olympic Games while still a student.

International Rowing Career

Having missed out the opportunity to represent Britain at the under-18 level, West's international rowing career began in 1998, when he competed for Great Britain with Mark Hunter in the Double Scull at the under-23 World Rowing Championships in Ioannina, Greece. However, his career really took off the following year when he was selected to row in the Men's Eight.

The 1999 crew, coached by Martin Mcelroy and Harry Mahon, who had coached West at Cambridge, with West the youngest member and in the six seat, turned out to be the most successful British Eight to date. Having come second at all three regattas in the 1999 Rowing World Cup, it broke the British record on two occasions and came close to breaking the world record. At the World Rowing Championships that summer it briefly led the final, the first British eight ever to do so, before taking a silver medal behind the 1997 and 1998 World Champions, the USA, the highest finish position of a British Eight at a World Rowing Championships.

With the opportunity of an even more successful season in 2000, West took a year out of his studies to concentrate on preparing for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The crew remained almost the same, with only two changes from the previous year, and was even more successful in the early season, taking two gold medals and one silver from the Rowing World Cup and becoming the first British Eight to win the event outright.

Heading into the Olympic Games Britain were the joint favourites for the gold medal, alongside the USA, who had not raced internationally that season. A poor row in the first round, West's 23rd birthday, saw them lose to a strong Australian crew, but they were able to correct the mistakes and win their repacharge. In the final Britain led from start to finish to win the Gold medal for Britain for the first time since the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games. Australia took the silver. The crew of Andrew Lindsay, Ben Hunt-Davis, Simon Dennis, Louis Attrill, Luka Grubor, Kieran West, Fred Scarlett, Steve Trapmore and Rowley Douglas were all subsequently awarded the MBE for 'services to rowing' in the 2001 New Years Honours List.

Although he was again selected for the British Eight in 2001, West was unable to compete at the World Rowing Championships due to a rib injury followed by a shoulder injury sustained earlier that season. The following year West, now a school teacher, returned to international competition, stroking the British Coxed Four to a gold medal at the 2002 World Rowing Championships in Seville. The crew also contained two of the 2000 Eight, Luka Grubor and Steve Trapmore, and two members of West's 2001 Blue Boat, Tom Stallard and Christian Cormack. The following year West and Stallard were again in the Coxed Four and took a silver medal at the World Championships in Milan.

West would continue rowing internationally for the next three year, in the Men's Eight at the 2004 Athens Olympics, stroking the Eight to fourth place at the 2005 World Championships in Gifu, and back in the six seat of the Eight at the 2006 World Championships in Eton. He retired in the summer of 2007.

porting Achievements

In the course of his rowing career West has won every major international and domestic rowing event: the Olympic Games, the World Rowing Championships, the Rowing World Cup, the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race (three times), the Head of the River Race (twice), the Head of the River Fours (twice), and he came out of retirement in 2008 to win the Visitors' Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta, in a composite crew representing Imperial College London and Kingston Rowing Club.

Although he no longer rows, West remains a member of Kingston Rowing Club.

West's older brother, Damian, is also an international oarsman, who rowed for Oxford University Boat Club in the 1996 Boat Race and for Great Britain from 1993 to 1997.

"Kieran West, MBE" is also the name of the City of Cambridge Rowing Club's men's first boat.

Achievements

Olympic Games

* 2004 Athens — 9th, Eight
* 2000 Sydney — Gold, Eight

World Championships

*2006 Eton — 5th, Eight
*2005 Gifu — 4th, Eight
*2003 Milan— Silver, Coxed Four
*2002 Seville— Gold, Coxed Four
*1999 St. Catharines— Silver, Eight

The Boat Race

*2007 - Won
*2006 - Lost
*2001 - Won (President)
*1999 - Won

External links

* [http://www.bosonmedia.co.uk/ara/gbrowing/biographies/index.php?Action=2&id=53&back=2 Biography at the British International Rowing Office]
* [http://www.theboatrace.org/people/biogs/race2006/cambridge/Kieran_West/ Biography at the Boat Race page]