Paralympian Dave wins gold medal for the strath
PARALYMPIC rowing gold medal winner Dave Smith has revealed that he was in so much pain as he crossed the finish line that he did not even realise he and the GB team had won.
He told the ‘Strathy’: “I hurt so much I didn’t realise we had won the gold. My energy tank was completely empty.”
Joining him on the podium were James Roe, Naomi Riches, Pam Relph and cox Lily van den Broecke.
They had known they were up against it from Friday, as the German team had won their heat in a world record time.
Then a series of mishaps before the start the futher jeopardised their medal prospects.
Dave explained: “A couple of technical glitches with our boat meant we couldn’t do a proper warm -up before the race. Then to make matters worse, Lily dropped her timer into the water which meant she couldn’t shout out commands and we couldn’t cary out our race plan.
“Mind you, we could hardly hear a thing anyway. By the time we got to the last 250 metres, the noise from the crowd was incredible.”
He went on: “Being on the podium to receive our medals was one of those moments you just want to pause in time. The national anthem finished so quickly, and I could see my mum, dad and friends in the crowd. The whole experience was overwhelming.”
He added: “I have achieved my goal of winning a gold medal not just for Britain, not just for Scotland but for Badenoch and Strathspey, where I grew up.”
Since Sunday, Dave has been at the centre of a media maelstrom, doing interviews for TV, radio and the national press.
He also plans to attend the homecoming celebrations for Scotland’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes in Glasgow next Friday, September 14.
“Hopefully I can head up to Aviemore after that, have a couple of weeks off and show everyone my medal, ” said Dave.
Dave, who used to compete for the Great Britain bobsleigh team, was talent-spotted for rowing in a Paralympics GB talent identification programme.
A former pupil of Newtonmore Primary and Kingussie High, Dave was born with his feet the wrong way around. Surgery corrected this, but his right foot was left deformed. He still excelled at sport as a child, however.
His real battle started when he was diagnosed with a life-threatening tumour in his neck in 2009.
Despite a successful operation to remove the cancer, he was in rehabilitation for a year, during which time he had to learn to walk again.
There was no-one prouder than Dave’s parents, Alan and Irene, who were there to watch their son row to gold after all his setbacks.
Irene, who lives in Aviemore, said: “It was like a dream. It was absolutely brilliant. I couldn’t take it all in.”
Ewan McCarthy, from Kingussie, the former British orienteeering champion, and Rod Andean, from Aviemore, were two friends who were also in the crowd to watch.
Ewan said: “It was a great final 250 metres. When Dave got out of the boat for the medal ceremony, you could see he was exhausted. We thought he might fall into the water!”
Rod said: “It was a truly epic effort from Dave. He has trained all his life to be an elite athlete. It’s amazing to have gone to the Paralympics, and even better to have seen Dave win.”
