‘He chose to believe’: Meet Lola Anderson, GB rower living her late father’s Olympic dream

British rower dreamed of Olympic glory aged 14 watching London 2012 and her dad fished the discarded diary note out of the bin and kept it for years

At the time, Lola Anderson had written it off as a cringeworthy adolescent whim. She was far from the only youngster to have been swept along by the endless summer of London 2012 and, watching Great Britain surge down Dorney Lake towards one of their four rowing golds, was struck by “this massive wave of inspiration”. Her love for the sport had been growing and, at 14, this was the moment to spell out a plan for the future.

She ran to find her diary and started writing. “My name is Lola Anderson and I think it would be my biggest dream in life to go to the Olympics and represent Team GB in rowing and, if possible, win a gold medal,” read the entry. But immediately self-consciousness set in. Looking back now it is easily diagnosable. “Teenage girls don’t necessarily have the most belief in ourselves and I got very embarrassed,” she says. “I kinda thought ‘That was a really cocky, arrogant thing to have written’. Back then, on a good day I wasn’t capsizing. I ripped the page out and threw it in the bin.”