A double Olympic silver medallist and three times world champion, Frances has spent her life dreaming of becoming an Olympic champion. Having never been good at any other sport at all, useless at running, and even worse at jumping, Frances represented Great Britain in rowing for 14 consecutive years at 10 World Championships and 3 Olympic games, from the age of 14 to 28. How does someone become an Olympic medallist, when you can’t even imagine calling yourself an ‘athlete’? How can anyone get themselves to do another six hours of training in a day when you are so tired you can’t even pick up your fork to eat? Find out how far raw passion can take you.

A double Olympic silver medallist and three times world champion, Frances has spent her life dreaming of becoming an Olympic champion. Having never been good at any other sport at all, useless at running, and even worse at jumping, Frances represented Great Britain in rowing for 14 consecutive years at 10 World Championships and 3 Olympic games, from the age of 14 to 28. How does someone become an Olympic medallist, when you can’t even imagine calling yourself an ‘athlete’? How can anyone get themselves to do another six hours of training in a day when you are so tired you can’t even pick up your fork to eat? Find out how far raw passion can take you.

France started rowing at the Age of 11 at school in Oxford. First told that rowing was not for her as she was far too tall and would probably ‘fall in a lot’, Frances took up the challenge, and fell in love with the sport. It took two years to progress from splashing around in a dingy to being allowed into a real rowing boat, and another 8 years to persuade her parents that she really was passionate about this sport and it wasn’t a passing phase.

Inspired by a former school pupil, at 16 Frances vowed to her herself to make her first Olympics at only 19 years old in Sydney, 2000. Still at school, she ran between classes, and then promptly fell asleep in them. But it was worth it; in becoming an Olympian Frances thought all her dreams had come true – until she saw her team mates getting medals… Then she knew her dreams were even greater than she had realised. Her journey to the Olympic podium involved as many lows as highs; and most recently landed herself trying to explain why her crew will probably be remembered most for being the most disappointed British athletes ever to win Olympic silver in Beijing in 2008.

Not just a rower, Frances juggled her rowing career with a degree in Hispanic studies. She lived for a year in Seville, Spain, and travelled extensively in Latin and Central America, before tutoring and studying translation alongside her training. Frances has taken 2009 as time out to recover from the rigours of the full-time athlete training regime, and to develop her ardent passion for cooking, before seeing if the flame is still burning strong enough to dream once again for London 2012.

Frances has also dedicated much of this year to delivering motivational speeches and leadership workshops to a wide variety of audiences – from the cadets and officers at Sandhurst Military Academy, to the clients of top performance consultancy firms such as Lane 4 and Planet K2; and of course, as many schools as possible!

Despite her achievements, Frances believes that success should not be measured by the number of medals, but by how close someone has got to making themselves the very best they can possibly be, in whatever their chosen pathway, in any walk of life. Her journey has taught her that passion can take you further than you ever even dreamed possible.