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‘It was in Bristol that I got the coaching bug’
Sir David Tanner, the man behind British rowing’s unprecedented success, has revealed it was his time in Bristol that acted as a catalyst for his coaching career.
The performance director for the national team was candidly honest about his own abilities when he returned to the city, from which he graduated in 1984, to collect an honorary degree.
“Of course I wanted to come to a rowing university, but I was never going to be an Olympic level rower,” said Tanner, speaking after the ceremony in the University of Bristol’s Wills Memorial Building.
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“It was one summer when I did not have a rowing programme, so I went and did some volunteering at Clifton College Boys School and that gave me the bug for tutoring and it really started me off on my coaching career.”
The head teacher turned sporting hero first came to the forefront when he coached the ‘Ealing Four’, taking four school boys and training them from scratch to achieve an Olympic bronze in Moscow in 1980.
He has gone on to see the national team through one of its richest periods of success, topping the medals table for the third time at the Rio Olympics.
Tanner said he was deeply honoured to receive the recognition from the university from which he graduated with a degree in biochemistry more than 30 years ago.
Reminiscing on his time in the ‘beautiful, vibrant’ city that he still loves, he added: “I remember while I was at university, the only way in those days to get from Wills Hall to Saltford for the rowing was to cycle 25 miles. To do that a few times a week I suppose was pretty good going.”
Tanner also argued that sport in university has a growing importance and said he sees it sitting alongside the academic subjects in terms of learning new skills, teamwork and gaining health and fitness benefits.
BBC journalist Katya Adler received an honorary degree
Fellow Bristol University graduate and BBC journalist Katya Adler was among those to receive honorary degrees, along with the first president of the World Anti-Doping Agency and vice president of the International Olympic Committee, Dick Pound.
BOV’s artistic director Tom Morris shows actor Simon Callow work to redevelop the historic theatre
Bristol-born actor Timothy West is to attend a ceremony on Friday, when the Bristol Old Vic’s Tom Morris and Emma Stenning are also to be recognised with honorary degrees.
BOVs chief executive Emma Stenning
Read more: ‘This great tribute brings the entire university system into question’
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