Mark HUNTER

From a less privileged background than the majority of British rowers, Mark Hunter’s early life was centered around the river Thames. He learnt to row on the river as a member of the Poplar Blackwall & District Rowing Club and at 16 was apprenticed to be a Thames waterman with the intent on pursuing a career ferrying passengers along the river. After being a regular member of the national junior and under-23 programmes he progressed to the senior team in 2001, dropping into the lightweight category in the process. He was a member of the lightweight eight that reached the final of the 2001 World Championships but thereafter switched to the four, an Olympic class, in preparation for the Athens Olympics. The crew had a modicum of success on the road to Athens but had to be content with a victory in the C final and a lowly 13th place overall at the 2004 Games. In 2007 he was chosen to partner reigning world lightweight single sculls champion Zac Purchase in a double with the intent of contesting the 2008 Olympics. The pairing met with immediate success and were bronze medallists at their first World Championship together. Hunter and Purchase then maintained a perfect record throughout the 2008 season and won every race they contested up to and including the Olympic final. He then spent a year as an assistant coach at UCLA in California before returning to action in 2010. The duo won two further world titles in 2010 and 2011, when Mark was the British Olympic Association’s Olympic athlete of the year for rowing. Hunter and Purchase looked like retaining their Olympic title in 2012 and had victory in their sights until it was snatched form them in the final stages of a dramatic race by 6/10ths of a second. It was Hunter’s last major competition because he announced his retirement at Henley on the opening day of the 2013 Regatta, when he was also elected as a Henley steward. In February 2014 he was made the programme director at London Youth Rowing