Greg Searle – Keynote Speaker

British Olympic rower educated

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Specialist Subjects

  • Olympics
  • Sport
  • Teamwork

Biography

Gregory Searle MBE, is a British Olympic rower educated at Hampton School and London South Bank University.

 

Greg Searle started rowing in 1985 and rowed for Hampton School until 1990. He remembers these as some of the best years’ rowing and training he ever did. In 1988 he was selected in the coxed pair for the Junior World Championships where he finished fourth. For the following two years he was in the junior coxless four and he became only the second British junior (after Tim Foster) to win two World Championships gold medals.

 

After leaving school he moved from Hampton to Molesey Boat Club and straight into the GB team. Greg won his second junior gold in 1990 and became the first athlete to achieve selection for both senior and junior World Championships in the same year by gaining a seat in the men’s eight alongside brother Jonny. This young, newly-formed, eight were placed fourth in Tasmania, only inches behind the East Germans. The Searle brothers were in the eight again for the 1991 World Championships and returned from Vienna with a bronze medal.

 

They rowed down the Abbagnale brothers, nine times World Champions and twice Olympic Champions, to take the gold medal on the line and provide a breath-taking spectacle.
In 1993 at the World Championships in Prague, the Searles cemented their reputation by taking the coxed pairs title away from the Abbagnales. He was also awarded and MBE in the 1993 new years honors, following his gold at barcelona.

The coxed pair had by then been removed from the Olympic programme and in 1994 Greg switched, with Jonny, to the coxless four. They were joined by Tim Foster and fellow old-Hamptonian Rupert Obholzer with whom they had rowed in the 1991 eight. Under the supervision of Steve Gunn they began their Olympic campaign with a bronze medal at the World Championships in Indianapolis and built on it in Tampere in 1995 by bringing home the silver medal, narrowly losing to the Italians. He then went on to win the bronze medal at the 1997 World Championships.

In 2000 Greg Searle moved back to sweep and paired with Ed Coode, World Champion in the M4- from the previous year. He competed in the A.C.Challenger Series in 2002 with GBR Challenge.

 

He returned to international rowing at the age of 38 for the 2010 World Rowing Championships and won an Olympic bronze medal, age 40, in the men’s eight at London 2012. He has worked as a management consultant at Lane 4 Management Group since 1997, a company set up by Olympic swimmer Adrian Moorhouse, working with senior executives as a personal coach or facilitating team meetings and running developmental workshops.

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