Andrew Triggs-Hodge

Andrew Triggs-Hodge is an Olympic and double world champion, the former success coming as the stroke for Great Britain's gold medal-winning coxless four in Beijing.

Hodge's first world title came in 2005, the same year he was also a member of Oxford's winning crew in the University Boat Race. His second success at world level, also in the coxless four, came the following year at Eton Dorney - venue, of course, for rowing at the 2012 Games.

Having triumphed alongside Tom James, Peter Reed and Steve Williams in Beijing, Hodge and Reed have subsequently moved to the coxless pair. However, further such success has since eluded them, with New Zealand pair Eric Murray and Hamish Bond winning gold in the event at both the 2009 and 2010 world championships.

Growing up in North Yorkshire, Hodge first started rowing when he moved to Staffordshire to study at university. His career accelerated after he moved to Oxford to take a Masters degree, with a first world championship appearance coming in 2002.

He earned a bronze as part of the Great Britain eight boat that claimed bronze in the following year's world championships in Milan, although his Olympic debut in Athens ended in disappointment when the eight failed to make the final.

By accounts an affable, easy-going man, Hodge nevertheless transforms himself into an altogether different animal when preparing for the heat of competition - psyching himself up, for example, by listening to rap metal artists like Rage Against The Machine.

"It's what works for me, to sit on the start-line and be this person I don't like being," he told The Times in Beijing. "I want to see the other crews cross the line and be wretched, destroyed, because that is the only way I get what I want. That is how over the top I have to go.

"It is that summoning of something inside you, letting yourself be overcome with aggression. It is a bloodlust, if you like, and as far as I am concerned this is the last race of my life. It is not easy because, actually, they are a good bunch of guys in some of the other crews."