Gillian Lindsay has never been one for sitting still. Arriving in the sport of rowing at age 13, Gillian attended St Andrew’s Academy, Paisley before joining the GB team a few years later. Unlike many of her rowing contemporaries, Gillian grew up on a council estate in Scotland, worlds away from the tranquillity and relative splendour of Henley-on-Thames, where she eventually ended up. Her career since then has taken her to coaching headships at Lady Eleanor Holles and Wimbledon High School, commentating on some of the world’s most significant sporting events and now launching her venture via GL Camps. This is a woman who relishes a challenge.
“I got into rowing because I was tall – six feet tall in Year 7 – and I struggled at school,” explained Gillian. “I fell in love with the sport immediately. It became really exciting in my life, and everything else fell by the wayside as I improved. I’d always wanted to go to the Olympic Games and suddenly, that seemed like a prospect more than ever before. Rowing was a gateway, an opportunity I’d been given to change my life.”
Fast-forward a couple of years. Gillian had climbed the ranks in Scotland and was one of the country’s most prominent athletes. In her quest for a fresh challenge, she came up against a man named Walter Scott—and the encounter changed her life.
“We were racing at one of the head events, and my coach told me that the target that day was to beat Walter Scott. I thought that was pretty punchy, but I’d give it my best shot,” she said. “He set it off just ahead of me and through the race, he was really pissing me off. In the end, I think I just shouted in the biggest, broadest Glaswegian accent, ‘Get out the fucking way’.“
After the race, Scott approached Gillian’s coach, expressing admiration and offering support. As it turned out, Scott was a prominent investor with offices and homes in Henley, the birthplace of the world-renowned Leander Club. For the following 20 years, the two formed an incredible relationship, with Scott funding Gillian to come down to Henley, become part of the resident women’s squad and pursue her ambitions in the team.
After winning Olympic silver in 2000 alongside Dame Katherine Grainger, Gillian retired as then Britain’s most successful female sculler. The profound difference that rowing and Walter Scott had made on her life bled through into choices to come. She took on roles in coaching, helping and enabling young people to access the sport. After initially rising to run the programme at Lady Eleanor Holles, Gillian recognised that a truer challenge would lie in helping build a new rowing squad.
“I left the women’s squad in 2000 and realised that being a role model for young people and immersing myself in their enthusiasm and joy for the sport was what I wanted next,” said Gillian. “I wanted to see projects fly; I wanted to be in the driving seat and take the learnings I had accrued from experience on the national team – where things could be difficult and dark and heavy – and foster an environment for young people that was none of those things.”
So, why leave it all behind to start running rowing camps? “When I joined Wimbledon High, the programme was completely new and had nothing. I took that as an opportunity to try and scale up to a point where this new project could compete with the likes of LEH,” explained . “I wanted to build a boat club from the grassroots. It went from sharing a river with top rowing clubs to beating top rowing clubs; our girls were getting into GB trials and offered US scholarships. That was when I knew it was time to leave.”
The onus for Gillian has always been on finding the challenge and rising to it. With the inevitable growth of the programme at Wimbledon High and the soaring expectations that come with performance sport, she yearned to return to creating fun environments for young people to access the sport. So began GL Camps.
“The focus is everyone having a good time but being constructive and productive in the time we spend together,” she said. “From the J14s to the masters I work with, it’s about ensuring they get the bespoke and focused feedback. They get me and my experience for four nights, five days and I bring a range of coaches in too to supplement. I love organising and managing the community, the team, the body of clients and customers.”
What is clear is that there is a sizeable gap in the market for this type of coaching. Few athletes get the tailored feedback they need to improve, and GL Camps can provide that in a warm and welcoming environment, often in some picturesque corner of Europe. “The largest schools and universities in the country have access to these opportunities already. The challenge for me is providing that level of rowing education to the masses.”
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