Katherine Grainger CBE (born 12 November 1975 in Glasgow) is a British Rower, 2012 Suumer Olympics gold medallist, three-time Olympic silver medalist and six-time World Champion. She is currently Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, as of March 2015.
Grainger first won silver at the Sydney Olympics in 200 in the woman’s Quadruple Sculls. In Athens in ’04 she won silver in the coxless pairs. In Beijing ’08 she won her third silver, again in the Quadruple Sculls.
Grainger has won eight medals at World Championships between 1997 and 2011. At the London Olympics Anna Watkins and Grainger broke the Olympic record as they qualified for the Double Sculls final. They then went on to win the gold medal. With four Olympic medals, Grainger shares the record as Great Britain’s most decorated female Olympian with Rebecca Adlington
Grainger took up rowing at the University of Edinburgh in 1993 and represents Edinburgh’s St Andrew’s Boat Club and/or Marlow Rowing Club in rowing events. She trained on the River Dee.
She is a three-time Olympic silver medalist. She first won silver at Sydney in the woman’s quadruple sculls with Batten, Lindsay and Batter losing to a German team. Four years later in Athens in ’04, She won silver again when she took part in the coxless pairs with Cath Bishop losing to a Romanian pairing. She returned to the quadruple sculls in Beijing when she won her third silver with Houghton,Vernon and Flood. narrowly losing to China after taking the lead for some of the race.
Grainger has also won eight medals at World Championships. The first of these was a bronze in 1997 in the eight, then a gold with Bishop in 2003, a gold in 2005 with the quadruple scull, with Houghton, Winckless and Romero, and in 2006 her quadruple scull were promoted to gold following a drugs test on the winning Russian crew. This quad had Debbie Flood instead of Romero, who had retired after the 2005 world championships. Another gold came in 2007, again in the quadruple sculls, with Annie Vernon replacing the injured Sarah Winckless. In 2009, having switched to the single scull after the Beijing Olympics, Grainger claimed a surprise silver at the World Championships in Poland. In 2010, Grainger teamed up with Anna Watkins in the Double Sculls and they embarked on an unbeaten season, culminating in victory in November in the World Championships in Lake Karapiro, New Zealand and then defending the title in an injury disrupted season in 2011, in Bled, Slovenia.
She has also won the Rowing World Cup in the Quadruple Sculls in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2010 and the Double Sculls in 2010, 2011 and 2012.