ROWING: Former Stroud High School student Anna Corderoy selected by Team GB for World Rowing Championships

Anna Corderoy, from Horsley, has been named in Great Britain’s Paralympic coxed four, one of Britain’s most successful boats in recent years, bound for the competition in Florida next month.

As the crew’s coxswain – or cox – Anna, 22, is the only member not categorised with a disability, but instead has the responsibility to serve as the eyes and ears for the crew, steering, making calls to execute the racing plan and motivate the athletes to keep pushing at their very limits.

Anna is native to an area boasting an already impressive rowing dynasty, with Nailsworth’s three-time Olympic champion Pete Reed having announced he will be pushing for a fourth title at Tokyo 2020.

But despite the fact that the two pass each other in the halls every day at GB Rowing’s base in Caversham, near Reading, Anna said she has never been able to pick up the courage to say anything to him.

“I remember before I had even considered rowing, I saw Pete Reed’s golden post box go up and thinking that was awesome,” she said.

“It’s so surreal to be training in the same place as him every day.”

Claiming that the thing she hated most at school was PE, Anna left Stroud High in 2013, going on to Oxford University to study English language and literature, where she had a change of heart, picking up an oar to try out in the university’s famous pastime with her college, St Catherine’s.

“It was Oxford and everyone gives rowing a go,” she said. “I never thought I would be to Boat Race standard but I didn’t realise how bad I would be. I was probably the worst rower they had ever seen.

“After about a term they said ‘we’d love you to stay in the team, but we think you might be better suited to coxing’ so I took that up at the end of my first year.”

And it didn’t take her long to learn the ropes, eventually ‘by sheer luck’ being invited to attend the Oxford University Lightweight Women’s Rowing Club training camp, and going on to be selected to race Cambridge in their annual duel – winning by a mere three feet.

Having left university last summer, Anna began studying a law conversion course in London and went on to join the high performance squad at Molesey Boat Club in Surrey, which propelled her into selection for GB.

Her skills have already been put to good use this year, outside of training, with the coxed four picking up two golds back in May at the Gavirate International Regatta in Italy.

Anna (far left) with her crew after winning gold in Gavirate, Italy

“It’s been quite an intense six months,” she said. “It’s very exciting to be part of the squad, something I thought would never happen when I first tried rowing.

“It has been a challenge and quite a learning curve, but it’s great to be in such a welcoming environment with such a talented crew.

“Gavirate was a nice way to get started internationally, but despite months of training, it wasn’t until we pushed off to race that I really felt like I was representing GB. It’s really cliché but that was when it really hit me, it was a very emotional moment.”

Having established such an impressive career in the rowing world at such a young age, Anna paid tribute to her time at Stroud High, and that the “amazing culture” has inspired her to “shoot for things a little beyond her reach”

She said: “They encourage you to stand up for and pursue anything you wanted, and I think for me both of the biggest opportunities I have had, at Oxford and Team GB, have happened because I went for something a little beyond my reach.

“I definitely think that has come from Stroud High because you are encouraged to do whatever you want and there are no boundaries.”

The World Rowing Championships take place in Sarasota, Florida from Sunday, September 24 to Sunday, October 1.