Of all the prizes and accolades dished out last night at SPOTY none was more deserved than the Lifetime Achievement Award presented to Sir Steve Redgrave, for whom I am an unashamed admirer.
For anyone who does not quite understand what this man has achieved let me spell it out. Five Olympic gold medals in five successive Games between 1984 and 2000 makes him the most successful British Olympian in history, a haul (he also won a bronze as well in the coxed pairs in 1988) achieved in one of the most gruelling sports imaginable, with little reward (other than personal satisfaction and achievement, of course) for much of this time, and a great deal of pain.
Throw in hurdles such as colitis and diabetes into the mix, which he swatted away in his quest for gold, as well as his subsequent fund-raising and general status in British sport that has helped win us next summer's Olympics, and you can see why he received a standing ovation last night in Salford.
I once spent a bruising week rowing with Steve at Henley who, quite rightly, gave me little quarter. At the end of a humbling, back-breaking, mind-testing time spent with him, as well as Matthew Pinsent, James Cracknell and Tim Foster, Steve shoved me into the Thames as a "parting gift." Later he would write a foreword to one of my books.
I've been lucky to have met some of the most impressive, mentally-strong sporting characters from all over the world over the past years, and I would place Steve Redgrave right at the very top.
