Stephen David Williams (born 15 April 1976 in

Leamington Spa Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply LeamingtonEven more colloquially, also referred to as Lem or Leam (). (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Pri ...

) is an English rower and double Olympic champion. In April and May 2011, Williams walked to the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

and achieved the summit of

Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...

Education

Williams was educated at

Monkton Combe School Monkton Combe School is a public school ( fee-charging boarding and day school), in the village of Monkton Combe near Bath in Somerset, England. History Monkton Combe School was founded in 1868 by the Revd. Francis Pocock, a former curate ...

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

, where he began rowing aged 13. He attended

Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University (OBU; formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic) is a public university, public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Th ...

where he studied

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

and

Town planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

International career

Williams made his full international debut in 1998 at the age of 22. He partnered Fred Scarlett in the coxless pair, and came sixth in his first world championships. A year later he partnered Simon Dennis in the same event, this time finishing fifth. In 2000 both Scarlett and Dennis won seats in the GB Eight for the Olympics in Sydney but Williams just missed out, and instead was a member of the Coxed Four which won a gold medal at the

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

for non-Olympic events. In 2001 he was again world champion, this time in the Coxless Four, and won the silver medal in the same discipline in both 2002 and 2003. With

Matthew Pinsent Sir Matthew Clive Pinsent, (; born 10 October 1970) is an English rower and broadcaster. During his rowing career, he won 10 world championship gold medals and four consecutive Olympic gold medals. Since retiring, he has worked as a sports b ...

, James Cracknell and Ed Coode, Williams won Olympic gold at the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

in the men's coxless four. Williams was the only member of the 2004 Olympic crew to continue racing in the 2005 season, joining Alex Partridge, Pete Reed and Andrew Triggs Hodge in the coxless four, again winning the World Championship that year and in 2006, before coming in fourth at the 2007 world championships. In 2008, Partridge was replaced in the four by Cambridge Blue Tom James, and - despite an injury-torn season - the quartet became Olympic Champions, defeating the Australian boat by 1.28s on the day dubbed 'Super Saturday' by the media owing to the large GB medal haul. The Australians led for much of the race before a push by the British boat overhauled them in the last 400 m.

Current occupation

Williams was appointed as a fitness consultant to Andy Liddell for Ipswich Town Football Club on 3 July 2012. Having been appointed a

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(MBE) in the

2005 New Year Honours New Year Honours were granted in the United Kingdom and New Zealand at the start of 2005. Among these in the UK were knighthoods awarded to Mike Tomlinson, the educationalist; Derek Wanless, who led a review of the National Health Service; ...

, Williams was promoted to

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours. On 22 January 2010 he announced his retirement from rowing. He has been welcomed back to

on several occasions, rowing in a Monkton Bluefriars old boys' boat at a school regatta.

Achievements

* Olympic Medals: 2 Gold *

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

Medals: 4 Gold, 2 Silver

Olympic Games

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

– Gold, Coxless Four (with Andy Hodge, Pete Reed, Tom James) *

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

– Gold, Coxless Four (with

, James Cracknell, Ed Coode)

World Championships

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

– 4th, Coxless Four (with Pete Reed, Alex Partridge and Andrew Triggs Hodge) *

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

– Gold, Coxless Four (with Pete Reed, Alex Partridge and Andrew Triggs Hodge) *

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

– Gold, Coxless Four (with Pete Reed, Alex Partridge and Andrew Triggs Hodge) *

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

– Silver, Coxless Four (with Josh West, Rick Dunn and Toby Garbett) *

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

– Silver, Coxless Four (with Josh West, Rick Dunn and Toby Garbett) *

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

– Gold, Coxless Four (with Ed Coode, Rick Dunn and Toby Garbett) *

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

– Gold, Coxed Four (with Alistair Potts, Rick Dunn, Toby Garbett and Graham Smith) *

1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

– 5th, Coxless Pair (with Simon Dennis) *

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

– 6th, Coxless Pair (with Fred Scarlett)

References

External links

BBC Oxford – Steve Williams profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Steve 1976 births Living people Sportspeople from Leamington Spa People educated at Monkton Combe School English male rowers English Olympic competitors Olympic gold medallists for Great Britain Olympic rowers for Great Britain Rowers at the 2004 Summer Olympics Rowers at the 2008 Summer Olympics Officers of the Order of the British Empire Alumni of Oxford Brookes University Olympic medalists in rowing Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics Members of Leander Club British summiters of Mount Everest World Rowing Championships medalists for Great Britain