Eddie determined to realise her dreams

11:30am Saturday 9th June 2007

Jess Eddie is one of the rising stars of the British rowing squad as they begin to turn their attention to next year's Olympic Games in Beijing. Chief Sports Writer SCOTT WILSON spoke to the 22- year-old

IT is 6.15am on a Monday morning and Durham-born Jess Eddie is walking towards Caversham Lake in Berkshire.

Before she heads for home at around 3pm, the 22-year-old rower will spend more than four hours on the water and put in another two hours of hard graft in the gym. Unsurprisingly, there are times when she questions whether the mental and physical exhaustion is justified.

While other women her age are cavorting in the trendy pubs and clubs surrounding her Chiswick home, Eddie, a former pupil of St Leonards Comprehensive in Durham, is committed to a punishing training schedule.

One glance at the walls of the boathouse on the shores of Britain's high-performance rowing lake, though, and she knows that the sacrifices she is making are worthwhile.

To her left, there is the beaming face of Sir Steve Redgrave, Britain's most successful Olympian. To her right, she can see Matthew Pinsent, a four-time Olympic gold medallist. And in front of her, she spies a portrait of Katherine Grainger, a teammate in Britain's elite squad, celebrating the second of her Olympic silver medals.

The hall of fame stretches from one end of the corridor to the other but, crucially, room has been left for the champions of the future. And as Eddie prepares for this summer's World Championships as part of Britain's women's eight, she can dream of a day when future contenders will dream of emulating her own Olympic achievements.

"You come to a place like this and you really feel as though you're a part of something special,"

said Eddie, already a twotime medallist at World Under-23 level. "You look at people who have become heroes in their sport and you realise that they were once going through exactly what you're experiencing.

"You have to have an immense determination to succeed if you're going to make it to the very top in rowing, and looking at former champions winning their gold medals gives you a push to go that extra yard that might make the difference.

Achieving even a fraction of what some of these people have achieved would be an amazing."

Given the strides that Eddie has already made since picking up her first oar at the age of eight, such lofty successes are hardly out of the question.

The North-Easterner learned her trade at Durham ARC and was attending her first international regatta alongside her twin sister, Alex, at the age of 15.

By 2003, she was winning a bronze medal at the Under-23 World Championships at the age of just 18 and, after moving to London to complete a psychology degree, she joined the senior British training squad in Putney.

"My time with the British squad has been fantastic," she said. "

At first, I was nervous about training full-time with some of the best female rowers in the world. But they've made me feel at home and now I feel as though I belong here.

"It's a very competitive environment, but it's also a friendly and welcoming one. We have to push each other every day because, ultimately, we're all competing against each other for places at World Championships or Olympic Games.

"But we're also on the same side and there's a really strong bond between a lot of the girls on the team. A lot of us live close to each other and I think that closeness helps when the going gets tough."

A unity of purpose was certainly in evidence last weekend when the British eight claimed an impressive second in the final of the World Cup event in Linz.

Rowing as part of a crew that also included Northallerton-born Carla Ashford, Eddie helped guide the British boat to within two seconds of pre-race favourites Germany.

"The selectors like to keep you on your toes, so the World Championships squad will be finalised later in the summer," she said. "It goes without saying that I want to be a part of it, and I want to compete in the Olympics as well."

And given the depth of Eddie's determination to succeed, it would be foolish to bet against the caretaker at Caversham having to dig out a few nails and a hammer next summe