The Ultimate Race with Frances Houghton

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The first British woman to be selected for five Olympic Games, a multiple-World Champion and a three-time Olympic Silver Medalist. Frances Houghton has undoubtedly made her mark on the rowing world. 

Frances began rowing at the age of eleven, a pursuit born out of an attempt to emulate the style of her sister who had success across multiple sports at school.

Fast-forward a few years to Frances’ debut on the international circuit at the 1995 Coup and you begin to understand why she was earmarked for success from a young age. At just fifteen, Frances had won two gold medals at the Coup, putting her way ahead of many of her older peers. That year, no British female scullers were sent to the World Championships, meaning Frances had to wait another year for the 1996 World Championships in Glasgow to stretch her Championship wings.

Two years later, and alongside doubles partner Debbie Flood, she won bronze in Linz – GB’s first junior sculling medal. The same pair would go on to repeat the feat in Hamburg, but this time toppling all those above to claim gold as Britain’s first Under23 Sculling medal.

Frances continued her success in the senior team as part of the Quad that won three consecutive World Championships titles between 2005 and 2007, which – along with a silver in Athens – made them favourites for Olympic gold the following year. 

Yet despite leading the field through the 500m, 1000m, and 1500m markers, it was China who took gold on home-water; a massive disappointment for the crew, but a silver medal nonetheless. There was to be no such reprieve in London. 

2012 hadn’t panned out quite as Frances and her crew-mates had hoped. Qualifying for the final through the repechage meant GB entered the race on the back-foot; ultimately finishing last with Ukraine taking the gold. You could be forgiven for thinking this was the ultimate low-point of Frances’ career, but that’s not how she recalls the day:

“It was really difficult – everyone around us was winning medals, but I did go into it knowing we weren’t on great form. I was just so pleased to see British women win Olympic gold at last. It’s obviously hard when you’re not that person, but so many people had worked so hard for so many years to try and make that happen… My eyes were wide open – I knew I wasn’t going to win a medal.”

London was more than the medals won, both for spectators and athletes. Frances makes clear that 2012 was special because that was the year when she was able to share the buzz of the Olympics with her friends and family. Both parents had volunteered at Dorney that year, with her dad driving the commentary car along the course; the whole Houghton Household experienced the joy of the Olympics.

The reason for this unexpectedly rosy outlook can be found in her motivations after the Sydney games twelve years earlier when Frances made a vow, “to be the first woman to be selected to go to five games for Britain.”

With this oath still the anchor of her motivation, Frances knew she only need limp through 2012 to carry on to Rio, by which time she would be in a far stronger position after a hip operation had scuppered her 2012 preparation.

January of 2016 saw Frances switch from sculling to sweep, just in time for Rio selection as part of the Eight.

The British women’s comeback in the last 750m of the Rio final is one of the most impressive stories to come out of the 2016 games. For Frances, who retired on the podium, it was the crowning moment of her twenty-one year-long career in the GB team. 

Throughout her tenure as one of the foremost rowers in the world, she developed a clear sense of what made a strong team, and by extension, a winning crew. For the Women’s Eight in Rio, it boiled down to a few key concepts: Ownership, simplicity and honesty. 

If you swim towards a waterfall, the current imperceptibly speeds-up until you pass a point where, no matter how hard you try, you can’t escape the pull of the waterfall. This invisible line separating safety and ruination was all too clear in the minds of the Rio crew, so much so that after the team’s final training camp, Frances expanded on her training notes and sent a revised version to the crew’s cox, Zoe De Toledo. 

This was the team’s List of Truths that would keep them safely away from any racing waterfalls. This bible of success fell into two books: Training and Racing.

When it came to training, ruthless simplicity was their motto. Right from the very first stroke, the crew vowed to use simple steps to achieve their goals. After all, rowing is simply the process of doing the same thing, perfectly, two-hundred times. On a day-to-day level, this meant that every member of the crew would need to become outcome obsessed; process focused.

Ownership was the crew’s next pillar of truth, which came in the form of building the perfect race, section-by-section. Practically, the team would implement simple strategies that would help them do this, such as analysing the pros and cons of pieces, and reviewing wins and loses critically, without emotion. 

Perhaps the most challenging part of the process was sewing the crew together with a common thread of honesty, a process that required communication as the vital needle. Regardless of whether they wanted to, every athlete knew she had to keep the whole crew updated on any injury or illness, promptly explaining any absence or the reasons for being pulled off the erg. 

When it came to racing, not much would change. They had a simple race plan that split the race into three phases. The process of becoming one of the fastest boats of the day in Rio, however, began when they awoke that morning. 

‘Happen to the day ‘, was a key idea driving the mentality of the British Eight in Rio; imposing themselves and their process on race day, not the other way around. Anyone whose been around the circuit will know it takes courage to stick with the same thing when your competition tries intimidation tactics. Still, Frances and her crew recognised the importance of sticking with their process, regardless of what those around them were doing. 

Clearly, this process worked.

Looking back on her time in the sport, there’s little Frances would change about the path she chose:

“I don’t think I would change anything. My advice to young people is just to give yourself permission to believe in yourself, because when I gave myself that permission and rowed the way I loved to row, the boat went well. The big thing I learned through my career, after not winning in London, was to allow a shift in mindset towards asking myself the question, ‘what can we create together,’ rather than obsessing over gold.” 

The moments that Frances cherishes today are the experiences – not just the good races, but the hard times too. 

This shift away from a mindset of ‘it’s all about winning’ and towards ‘let’s see what we can create together’ is the real outcome of her life in the boat. As previously discussed, Frances had been identified as a talented athlete that would go on to do great things, and she certainly felt the pressure; but it was taking control of that pressure that allowed her to flourish at Rio.

That day, the Eight was far more than just the sum of its parts. In her book, Frances shows two images: one of her crew with a silver medal in Beijing, and another with the same medal in Rio. “It’s the same medal, but a completely different feeling,” she says.

When Frances sat down to write her book, it wasn’t a document she intended to send out into the world, but rather the physical embodiment of everything she had learned; a personal memoir. A few additional copies were ordered to give to coaches and friends who had played a large role in her success.

Frances was so pleased with the feedback she got, however, that when the first proof arrived in the post at the start of lockdown, she thought to make the text more widely available. Frances had spent the best part of thirty-years in a boat, and the information and ideas she absorbed from coaches, teammates and her own self-analysis culminated in a collection of lessons too valuable not to share with the rowing community and broader society. 

Much like the latter part of her time in the national squad, the process of creating the entirely self-published book had the aim of being enjoyable in itself, and not just a means to a vague, indeterminate end. 

“All the illustrations are mine, but the process of getting it from a PDF document of notes and sketches to what it looks like today was amazing. It was exactly what I’d written about in the book – it’s not about getting it done, but enjoying the process and going ‘I don’t want this to end’, even after four-and-a-half years of creating it. And, to be able to phone up my printer and say, “Roy, I’m going to need some more copies,” was just an incredible feeling for both of us.”

For Frances, her future remains unclear but exciting. She has set up the first mentoring scheme in Performance Sport and works alongside UK Sport to develop strategies to support professional athletes in their pursuit of victory, regardless of their sport. In the short term, she simply aims to give her book the best chance to succeed. 

“I find it best not to have high expectations, but to have high standards.”

Frances’ book was entirely self-published and is exclusively available on her website. It’s the culmination of a career at the bleeding-edge of performance sport, and has already helped rowers and non-rowers adjust their outlook and improve performance.

Ed

Opinions Editor

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Photos by Getty & GB Team

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