Last year he watched his first Olympics, now Cousins eyes 2012 gold

By George Scott, Sportsbeat

CHARLES Cousins thought he’d never be cut out for any sport other than basketball. By his own admission he was quite good – but you’d expect a 6’6” 15-year-old to tower over his peers. 

GOLDEN DOUBLE: Charles Cousins and Bill Lucas won gold at the under-23 World Championships in 2008

Cousins had no-where to hide when a team of talent scouts from GB Rowing turned up at a PE lesson at his Cambridge secondary school in 2004.  He took a number of strength and aerobic tests and thought nothing more of it.
 
The 20-year-old is now a graduate of the World Class Start programme -  the brainchild of chief talent spotter Peter Shakespear -  himself an Olympic rower with Australia.
 
And similar schemes have followed, from the aptly named ‘Sporting Giants’ to ‘Talent 2016: Tall and Talented’, launched last month.
 
Talent identification is now undoubtedly a key avenue for the future success of British rowing and 15 World Class Start graduates took to the water at the 2009 season-opening World Cup in Banyoles.
 
And if the proof is in the pudding, then world under-23 gold medallist Cousins is the Christmas cake.
 
“I really didn’t want to go and do the tests,” recalls Cousins. “I just wanted to doss around like everyone else but they made me do it.”
 
At the time Cousins was just an average teenager.  Three months later he was told he was cut out to be an Olympic oarsman.
 
“I got a letter saying the scores I got were quite good – the best in the area and top three in the country,” he says. “They asked whether I wanted to come along and give rowing a try.
 
“Adrian Cassidy, the coach for the area, came to my house.  He said from the start that the programme was all about developing Olympic athletes, with a focus on sculling.
 
“I was shocked and surprised when he said I could be at the next Olympics.  I just thought it was a bit of fun. I hadn’t done any serious sport before and I never thought it would end up like this.
 
“The Beijing Olympics was the first time I ever sat down and watched the Games.”

Cousins was coached by Cassidy at Rob Roy Boat Club, neighbour to Cambridge University Boat Club on the River Cam.  He then moved to Reading University, a stone's throw from GB Rowing headquarters in Caversham, to study Psychology where he is  in his final year. 
 
“Coming from Cambridge, the Boat Race is big, but I’d never watched it,” says Cousins. “I’d walked past the river hundreds of times but never thought about what those guys were doing.
 
“But suddenly a crazy idea seemed like a reality. From that point, being at the Olympics never seemed unreachable.”