John Collins is a two-time Olympian rower who competed at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. In this episode, he sits down with Callum at Roger Gracie Academy Marlow to talk about elite sport, identity, transition, and why he walked off the water after his last race and made a lunchtime jiu jitsu class the same morning.

What we cover:

John's path into rowing started at 15 with the Duke of Edinburgh award — he wasn't particularly athletic, couldn't run, couldn't catch, but someone told him he was good at it, and that was enough. From a club in Twickenham to Leander, national trials, and eventually two Olympic finals, John walks us through the full arc: the funding realities, the brutal training camps (170km a week on average, 500km in 12 days in Portugal), the wave that nearly capsized his boat in the Rio heat, the semi-final gamble that almost got them a medal, and the emotional cliff that followed.

He's honest about the Tokyo cycle too — returning too soon after running 348 miles for the Metro Marathon Challenge, a difficult coaching relationship, injuries to key partners, and ultimately missing out on Paris qualification. Retirement came on June 3rd. He was training at RGA Marlow by lunchtime.

Two years in, John reflects on what makes jiu jitsu so different from rowing: the unpredictability, the daily visible improvement, the way advanced practitioners get calmer while white belts come in swinging, and how getting folded up by someone half his size on his first session was exactly what sold him on it. He also talks fatherhood, the mental health side of life after elite sport, coaching a rowing club from scratch, and why he nearly took Bruce Dickinson into the Thames on a tandem bike.

Topics covered:

• Finding rowing at 15 and being told he was good at it
• The Duke of Edinburgh to Henley to GB trials pipeline
• Funding, parental support, and the reality of athlete finances
• Training volume — 170km average weeks, Portugal camps, the 30-minute ergo test
• Rio 2016: the wave that moved their boat a full lane, the semi-final from hell, and fifth in the final
• The emotional rollercoaster of watching teammates become Olympic champions
• Going again for Tokyo, the Metro Marathon Challenge, and returning to training broken
• Coaching conflict and being sidelined in the Paris cycle
• Retiring and walking into a lunchtime BJJ class the same day
• The unpredictability of jiu jitsu vs. the single-movement precision of rowing
• White belt competition nerves and the universal fear of losing
• Elite athlete identity, mental health, and staying busy in transition
• Fatherhood at five months in and squeezing in doubles classes before work
• Ronnie O'Sullivan, the Eubanks, and dinner at Bruce Dickinson's house