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Born in Seattle and raised in the Cotswolds, he showed tremendous sporting talent from an early age. After impressing at school level in rugby and basketball, he took up American Football and following play for the Gloucester Gladiators and Bristol Rams, was selected for the British Bulldogs side that faced the USA in 1997.
His life changed when he won a coveted place on an Officer training scholarship at the Royal Navy College in Dartmouth in 1999 – one of only three comprehensive school students to be chosen from thousands of applicants. A year later, he sat on an Ergometer rowing machine for the first time and recorded the fastest time in the Royal Navy’s annual fleet-wide fitness competition.
After passing his Officer training, Pete started a Mechanical Engineering degree at the University of Western England in 2000 and, in his second year, developed a passion for rowing. He became University Rowing Club President in his final year, mentored by Olympic medallist Fred Smallbone.
He made his Great Britain rowing debut at the Under-23 Championships in 2003 in the coxed four before starting an MSc in Engineering at Oxford. Whilst Pete was part of the Oxford crew who lost the Boat Race in 2004 – his last defeat for three years – he did enough to earn a training place with Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell in Austria as a spare for the GB Olympic squad but had to look on as the established team went on to Athens and a gold medal.
Pete helped Oxford win the Boat Race in 2005 in the renowned ‘heaviest Boat Race crew of all time,’ and along with his Oxford strokeman, Andy Triggs Hodge, they won the GB pairs trials. They were selected by coach Jürgen Gröbler to row alongside Alex Partridge and Steve Williams MBE, in the new GB coxless four.
Unbeaten in 27 races until the 2007 World Cup in Lucerne, Pete’s successes currently include nine World Cups and two World Championships. Despite being tipped for Olympic success, the coxless four came eighth in the World Cup earlier in the summer of 2008 with two of their original team injured.
The original line-up only started rowing again at the Olympic Regatta in Shunyi, but they recovered to win the coxless four Olympic gold medal with a time of 6:06.57, more than a second ahead of second-placed Australia.
Pete recently posted the largest recorded lung capacity at 11.68 litres and is now setting his sights on another Olympic gold at the 2012 Olympics in London. He is a keen artist and piano player in his spare time and lives in West London. |
Olympic gold medallist Pete Reed, 27, is one of the most naturally gifted sportsmen of our generation. 