When his former contemporaries were winning medals at London 2012, Matt Rossiter was taking a break from his job at a marketing start-up firm to work behind an Olympic merchandise stall.
While those same ex-teammates were claiming gold at Rio 2016, Rossiter was making a comeback from a seemingly career-ending back injury by rowing recreationally at the Leander Club in Henley.
So when the 29-year-old says the battle to reach Tokyo 2020 has helped him regain a sense of purpose – a target he can move a step closer to at this week’s Rowing World Championships – that’s not just a professional sportsman spouting a generic platitude.
After all, this is the same man who, as a seven-year-old boy, fell in love with the Olympics and began plotting a path to appear on the biggest stage of all.
“Since I was a kid I’ve been obsessed with the Olympics – I remember vividly watching Atlanta 1996 and I had a notebook, where I wrote down all the sports and rated how suitable I would be for each one,” explains Rossiter.
“At the time, cable TV had just been installed at my parents and the men who installed it had left a layer of new tarmac on the pavement, which I likened to the velodrome!
“I’d ride up and down the street on my bike and thought I’d make a good cyclist, while decathlon was quite high up as well.
“I can’t remember if rowing was on the list but it might have been – my brother [George] is on the GB team with me now and my dad rowed at Cambridge University, so he made us watch it.
“Ever since then I’ve been desperate to be an Olympian. When I wasn’t rowing because of injury it was incredibly hard – I lost the sense of purpose that chasing the Olympic dream provided.
“Now I’m doing it again, I’m really appreciative – it makes any success all the sweeter.
“At times, I was bitter towards those who I thought had more of a clear path to success but everyone has their individual struggle. I no longer feel hard done by but I’d be over the moon to fulfil the Olympic dream.”
Part of the men’s coxless four, Rossiter and co need to finish inside the top eight at the World Championships in Austria this week to secure a quota place at Tokyo for Team GB, qualifying straight through their heat to Thursday's semi-finals.
“If we weren’t to do that, then it would be nothing short of a disaster!” adds Rossiter. “After that, we’d hope to be in the medal zone and I don’t see any reason why we can’t be challenging for gold.”
Rossiter may no longer feel hard done by regarding his winding road to reach this point but the Newbury native has undoubtedly endured more tests than most prospective Olympians.
He was something of a rowing wunderkind – winning gold at the 2007 World Rowing Junior Championships, then becoming one of the youngest-ever competitors at an Under-23 World Championship a year later while still at school.
A trio of golds at the Sydney Youth Olympic Festival
and then a brilliant silver in the men’s coxless four at the 2010 U23 Worlds – in a boat with George Nash and Constantine Louloudis – meant an Olympic debut looked only a matter of time.
But in 2011, disaster struck – a serious back injury meant he couldn’t row for almost three years and had to watch Nash and Louloudis win bronze medals at London 2012 before turning that to gold in Rio four years later.
“I found it hard to see those guys doing that when I wasn’t rowing,” admits Rossiter. “I’m not saying I definitely would have made Olympic selection but it was tough not to even be able to give it a go.
“I actually worked at the London Olympics on one of merchandise stalls as I thought it would help to be part of it. Actually, it made it worse watching it all happen but being on other side.
“It made me tougher as a person and made me evaluate how much I love being a professional sportsman.
“After graduation I worked a normal job in London for a company called The Eleven, who were a small marketing start-up created by a friend of a friend.
“Even though I worked for a fun lively company in east London and really enjoyed myself, all I wanted to do was be rowing.
“Even once I started my recovery, I remember cycling back to the rowing club in London, being the only person in the gym and I just broke down saying ‘god, how has it gone so wrong? It was all looking so promising.’
“The back injury had stopped the path I wanted to go on – that door had been shut. It puts everything into context now. I only see things as a success if I make it to the Olympics.”
Rossiter began the slow rehabilitation process, working hard initially just to make sure he could have a normal quality of life, before taking up rowing recreationally once more.
His back held up, he found success with the Leander Club in Henley and then earned a call-up to the GB team after the Rio Olympics.
After earning selection, his boat was briefly de-selected before a training camp in May determined the current make-up of the coxless four – Rossiter, Oliver Cook, Rory Gibbs and Sholto Carnegie – and they won European gold less than a month after being selected.
And if Rossiter’s story needed another twist, Cook provided it as something of a familiar face.
“Olly and I actually went to Abingdon School together. We started playing rugby together when we were 13 and then we’ve rowed together since we were 14 or 15,” says Rossiter.
“We went to different universities and didn’t row together for a while but we went to our school ten-year reunion last year.
“Everyone put us in the bracket of ‘the rowers’ and was asking us how it was going. Literally that week we’d been announced as the pair to row at the World Champs but before that we hadn’t really rowed together for years.
“It was funny how we were put together by chance the same week as our school reunion.”
Fate might finally be dealing Rossiter a good hand and he fully intends to take it all the way to the Olympics.
Sportsbeat 2019