Following a three and a half month break after the Beijing Olympic Games, and her decision to carry on her life as an athlete, with the London 2012 Games as a long-term target, Katherine got back into training at the start of 2009.
Since then, she has worked hard – at the squad training base in Caversham, near Reading; at training camps in Australia and Italy; and at team trials, where she emerged as the fastest women’s single sculler among the GB team for the sixth time.
Now, as the team prepares for the opening World Cup event of the 2009 season being held in Banyoles, Spain on the course used for the rowing events at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, Katherine faces a new challenge – racing internationally in the single sculls category. Whether she will stay in the single scull has not yet been decided, but Katherine’s racing programme for 2009 will see her race later in the World Cup series, which moves to Munich in June and Lucerne in July, as well as the Banyoles event at the end of May.
In between times, she will take up new admin and managements duties as a Steward of Henley Royal Regatta at the start of July, where she will swap racing lycra for below-the-knee skirts to comply with the unique dress code of this most traditional of events.