AS a 10-year-old growing up in West Moors, Alison Knowles had a clear vision. She was going to be an Olympian.

Then a keen swimming hopeful, she had already plotted her path to sporting stardom.

“I remember saying to the mum of one of my friends at the swimming club in Ferndown that I was going to go to the Olympics,” recalled Knowles with a grin, in an interview with the Daily Echo at the recent Team GB rowing press day.

“I was about 10 when I said this. I think at the time I was going to be a swimmer or a high jumper, but I knew I always wanted to go to the Olympics.

“When I realised that I could do it in rowing, that was it and I was like a dog with a bone.

“I wouldn’t let go and I still won’t let go until I feel like I have succeeded and done what I am capable of doing.”

Almost two decades after her premonition, it is obvious the fires of ambition still burn just as ferociously.

Having attended West Moors Middle School and Ferndown Upper School, Knowles was a member of Ferndown Otters swimming club, where she learned the discipline – and honed the fitness – that would later stand her in good stead for a sporting career.

After heading to university in Exeter to study law and geography, she took up rowing and has not looked back. Now 29, Knowles has been a regular part of the women’s eight crew since 2005 and earned selection to compete at the 2008 Games.

Surrounded by fellow rowers alongside shimmering waters at the Redgrave Pinsent Rowing Lake, the team’s training base near Reading, Knowles need not look much further than the name of the venue for motivation as she bids to claim a place at her second consecutive Games.

And while the Bournemouth-born athlete achieved her life-long goal of competing at the Olympic Games in Beijing, she has unfinished business.

Having helped the women’s eight reach the 2008 final, she missed out on the big occasion after being cruelly struck down by illness.

But that setback – coupled with the chance to showcase her skills on home waters at London 2012 – means she remains as hungry as ever to fulfil the aims she recalls voicing all those years ago.

Looking back at her 2008 experience, Knowles said: “We had a heat which went fine and the day of our repechage, to get into the final, I had a bit of a sore throat.

“I didn’t think too much of it – it happens during racing – and I finished the race and didn’t feel amazing.

“I went to the doc and said I thought something was up, and the next morning I had a massive fever and was in bed with a chest infection and flu. I kept falling over and couldn’t really see what I was doing, so I stayed in my room in quarantine for 90-something hours.

“I was not allowed to see anyone or speak to anyone and I couldn’t tell my family because it was on media lock-down.

“That was fairly devastating for me and one of my crew-mates that also missed the final. It was for the rest of the crew as well – we had a really strong crew. During the earlier rounds, we were the closest to the Americans and knew we had a good chance if we got it right.

“By the time they raced the final, three or four more of them were getting pretty ill and it wasn’t a nice experience.

“It has motivated me to carry on going and there are some demons that I need to deal with.”

With trials ahead of the final selection in May or June, Knowles will be doing everything in her power to claim the chance to banish the memories of Beijing.

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