Imogen Grant has a full-time job working in the NHS as a doctor as well as training twice a day as a rower – and yet she still somehow finds time to pursue her other passion.
Grant won a gold medal for Team GB at the Paris Olympic Games in the lightweight double sculls with Emily Craig. Victory in August was a culmination of four years of relentless training after the duo missed out on a medal at the Tokyo Games by 0.01 seconds.
Her hard work has also brought about another piece of silverware, with Grant being named Athlete of the Year at the BBC Sport Green Awards on Monday night. The 28-year-old has used her platform to raise awareness of water pollution, having been shocked by the decline in conditions in her local area.
“For me as a rower, I’m on water every day – be it a river or a lake,” she tells Mirror Sport . “I’m so incredibly lucky to visit these places that are often beautiful locations of nature, but sometimes they are not as beautiful as they should be. I row on the same bit of river every season, morning and evening, and I see it change and get worse – watching the scum come down, the foam and the bubbles of pollution.
“Having done water testing at our national training centre after the flooding last year, there were huge levels of nitrates and phosphates, which are both proxies for agricultural run-off, or sewage to put it plainly – and that’s the water that we’re training on every day. It’s been something that’s been neglected for a number of years and it’s something that I’m passionate about trying to change.”
Grant is an ambassador for the Rivers Trust and is actively involved in trying to encourage rowers to test the water they train on. That data can then be collated and put to the government to try and force change at the highest level.
The issue has become more prominent in recent years and two major stories in sport has provoked anger. In March, the famous Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race was marred by high levels of E. coli in the River Thames. Competitors were banned from entering the water post-race, but Oxford mens’ captain Leonard Jenkins still vomited before his race, claiming he’d become sick from the water in London.
The Paris Olympics were then marred by the poor water quality in the River Seine, which threw the triathlon into chaos. Two Portuguese athletes fell ill, despite Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo swimming in the river herself in a desperate bid to prove it was safe.
Grant says pollution has presented dangers for rowers and swimmers in the UK. “We have athletes that fall ill with tummy bugs or blisters on our hands get infected – that’s just a risk of doing our sport at the moment,” he says. “The last thing we want to do is discourage people from using the rivers for what they’re actually there for. We don’t want it to be scary. We should be changing the river, rather than changing our behaviour.”
Grant was a part of the UK Sport-funded Powered by Purpose campaign, which brought her together with other athletes passionate about speaking out against issues around sport. She firmly believes that governing bodies should be taking a stronger stance on fighting climate change.
“The penny is starting to drop for sporting bodies,” Grant says. “Athletes aren’t just accepting that things are good enough any more. We want our governing bodies to go above and beyond. I think an important first step will be for all of these bodies to acknowledge that we have a really prominent role to play in this because we’re so visible. Sport is all about pulling together against the bid adversity, in this case climate change.”
Grant believes there is one obvious, and potentially straightforward, step that could be taken right away: “I’d love to see sport divest of oil and fossil fuel sponsorship as a start and to also try and lead the way to minimise our transport emissions.
“Sport can’t afford to take that risk anymore because spectators know when it’s disingenuous. They know when they’re being sold a bad deal. If sport takes money from oil and fossil fuels, the fans are going to turn and ask why we’re destroying the planet and making it impossible to even play the sport because it’s too hot and the pitches are flooded.”
As well as leading on water quality and trying to hold sporting governing bodies accountable, Grant is vegan, having made the change from being vegetarian in January 2023. And while the change was made primarily for sustainability reasons, her diet shift has had another positive impact.
“I’ve PB’d, I’ve got stronger, fitter and faster and won an Olympic gold medal being a vegan athlete,” she explains. “For me it was kind of a no-brainer, because it’s one of the most impactful personal changes you can make to your lifestyle and it’s one I have control over. I don’t necessarily have control over whether I have space and a charging point for an electric car to reduce my emissions but I can choose what I’m eating.
“I do think there’s a lot of apprehension about it – worrying about getting enough protein, worrying about being hungry or tired and those are risks if you don’t do it right, because it is a drastic change. I’d always advocate doing it gradually, about finding swaps that make you feel good and happy, because that’s how you build motivation and momentum to make the next one.”