LIFE for James Cracknell has been nothing short of exhausting.

The double Olympic rowing champion has experienced triumphs, catastrophe and comebacks in the last 25 years.

So, it perhaps comes as no surprise that he has gone back to his roots and moved back to Henley, a place he considers “home”, in search of a simpler existence.

Cracknell, 52, and his wife of three years Jordan Connell, 39, have moved from West London with their French bulldogs Dug and George, to a spot close to the River Thames.

He says: “Henley is a town in this part of the country that I think is the best of England. It is definitely the place I feel more at home than anywhere else.

“A town with a river going through it is brilliant, irrespective of the rowing. London doesn’t have the same sort of community. Here, we are always running into people we know.”

Cracknell rowed in Henley from the age of 18, bought his first house in the town and had the first of his three children here with his first wife, Bev Turner, the television and radio presenter.

He went on to win two Olympic gold medals in the coxless fours, the first with Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent in Sydney in 2000, and then again with Steve Williams and Ed Coode in Athens in 2004.

He retired from competitive rowing two years later having also achieved a perfect record at the world championships, winning six golds in six events between 1997 and 2002.

Cracknell, like so many successful athletes, felt lost when he gave up and, while he took to writing and was a presenter on television, he was missing the competitive edge that came with sport.

He began taking on superhuman endurance challenges with his friend Ben Fogle, the broadcaster who lives in Fawley. But disaster struck in 2010 when he was involved in a road traffic accident that almost killed him when he was hit by a petrol tanker while cycling in the US.

On July 20, 2010, Cracknell was cycling along a quiet stretch of road outside Winslow, Arizona, as part of his attempt to cycle, row, run and swim from Los Angeles to New York within 18 days.

It was 5.30am when he was hit from behind by the wing mirror of a petrol tanker travelling at 70mph and suffered a contrecoup injury to the frontal lobe of his brain. He says he survived only because he was wearing a helmet. Cracknell’s brain had hit against the inside of his skull, which caused severe internal bleeding, and he was put in an induced coma. He recovered but emerged as a different man. He lost his sense of taste and smell and became delusional, angry, incoherent and unco-ordinated. This, ultimately, led to the breakdown of his first marriage.

Now, more than 14 years on, Cracknell has come to terms with his injury and his post-rowing life. He says: “To be open about it and to say that things are different is tough but progress has been made. I don’t think anyone’s the same person that they were 15 years on. We all change.

“What happened to me really affected my confidence, whether it was me not being the dad that I wanted to be or the man that I wanted to be. I found myself limited because it’s not like a broken leg where you can understand what happened to you and know how to get better.

“People react to brain injuries differently and people have different perceptions of brain injuries because it’s not like they come across it all the time. For a number of years, I had really bad facial recognition. I’d seen someone one week, then I wouldn’t recognise them the next week but I didn’t want to admit that I struggled, and I should have just owned it and got help when I needed it.”

Having come out the other side, Cracknell set himself even higher targets and began studying human evolution at Cambridge, which led him to become the oldest rower in the Boat Race, which he also won. It was the way in which he proved his mental and physical strength had returned.

He says: “It took me a while to buy into the idea of therapy and telling mates you’re struggling.

Rather than not seeing it as a weakness to ask for help and really showing vulnerability and saying actually ‘I need a bit of a hand; I’m not doing well’ which takes a lot of confidence.

“I didn’t have the mental flexibility to ask for help or therapy because I wasn’t able to embrace those sorts of things or admit weakness but that’s when you start really making a big recovery. When I went to Cambridge, part of it was going there to show myself and other people that if I could academically achieve at Cambridge and physically with the boat race as well, that people would ask ‘Are you okay after the accident’, but I wouldn’t need to ask myself because I have proved it and that was good enough.”
 

Cracknell, who is now vice-president of Headway, a brain injury charity, met Jordan while they were both at Cambridge pursuing their MBAs. She is a financier and author, who is from New York. Jordan had no idea he was an Olympic champion at the time and they relocated to London following her studies.

But coming back to Henley was always his plan and he had an unsuccessful attempt at being selected as the Conservative candidate for July’s general election.

He had more luck in Colchester but finished runner-up to the Liberal Democrat candidate, a result that was reflected here. He hasn’t ruled out trying again in Henley.

Cracknell says: “Whether it be the river, heavy goods vehicles that use the town as a cut-through, Townlands Memorial Hospital or schools and making sure the teachers can actually afford to live in the place where they teach, I believe the Conservative party are the best for the country and the individuals.

“For the first time in around 250 years, there’s no Conservative MP in Oxfordshire, so there are big changes.

“For many, I think the one disadvantage on a national level of Labour having such a big majority is that you need to have an effective opposition to challenge them and the same applies locally. We must make sure our MP, Freddie van Mierlo, does what he said he’s going to do.

“He must deliver what he said he was going to, what he had campaigned for locally, and not just what the Lib Dems campaigned for on a national level. Otherwise, that’s not going to help him in the long term. I don’t want to see him fail because I’d rather have a Conservative in. I’d rather he succeeded and did a really good job — and then lose at the next election.” Cracknell says he will continue to highlight local issues, such as problems with the water quality of the river. He says: “The river is a huge part of the economy here, it’s not just about Henley Royal Regatta or Henley Festival. I started rowing in 1990 and you take your boat off the water now and there’s a scum mark, it’s not clean.

“Water companies are very quick to just use storms to pump out a whole load of sewage and that’s a real shame because the river is great for the businesses of the town, families, couples, dog walkers, for everything. It does breathe life into the town and you just want to make sure you keep it as clean as possible.”

Cracknell says moving back to Henley provides them with a snapshot of what life used to be like while living in Cambridge and is now teaching his wife to row which he says has brought them closer together. They row at least once a fortnight from Upper Thames Rowing Club.

Mrs Cracknell says: “I really didn’t like the locks at all, it’s another burden in a way, but James is a great coach and I very much enjoy being with him on the water. He breaks it down as well which helps me understand what he’s trying to get me to achieve.

“It’s nice to just spend time with James without there being any cell phones or distractions. It’s just us on the river. It’s nice to be disconnected and just be out with nature because at home it’s so easy to turn the TV on.”

While Cracknell accepts his legacy will ultimately be as much about his achievements on the water as his downfalls off it, he is finally comfortable in his own skin and, being back in Henley, life can only get better.

He says: “The Olympics was something I did and the accident was something that happened to me but I wasn’t going to let it define the rest of my life.

“For me, my life is all about focusing on being the best dad, husband and mate I can be. Those are the really important things.”