Aged 13, Lola Anderson wrote in her diary she wanted to win the Olympics, then tore the page out in embarrassment.
But her father Don secretly retrieved it from the wastebasket and years later, when he was on his deathbed, he gave it back to her — and urged her to live her dreams.
Yesterday Miss Anderson did just that, and the tears flowed as she clutched her rowing gold medal and thanked her late father for his ‘parting gift of showing me how much he believed in me’.
She and her teammates in the women’s quadruple sculls pulled off one of the most astonishing comebacks of the Paris Olympics. They were behind the Netherlands for the entire 2km race until the final split second. Their families lining the banks screamed as the race ended in an agonising photo-finish.
Lola Anderson, pictured in a post on her Instagram page, has told of how she dreamed of becoming an Olympic champion as a teenager yet felt embarrassed by her diary entry
Gold medalists Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Georgina Brayshaw of Team Great Britain after their win yesterday
GB ROWING, win gold in coxlees 4, Gold medalists Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Georgina Brayshaw of Team Great Britain
Then the four collapsed into each other’s arms in joy and exhaustion as it was announced they had won by just 0.15 seconds. Back on land, Miss Anderson, 26, Georgie Brayshaw, 30, Lauren Henry, 22, and Hannah Scott, 25, could not stop beaming, dancing and hugging.
Their triumph was all the more extraordinary given that Miss Brayshaw was defying the odds just by being at the Olympics – doctors had warned she would never walk again after she was paralysed in a riding accident aged 15.
The Leeds-born rower was in a coma for nine days following the accident, and when she woke up she was paralysed on her left side. A hospital doctor told her parents: ‘She’s going to be here for a year, she’s never going to walk again and will probably never feed herself again.’
After her win yesterday, Miss Brayshaw said: ‘It’s just incredible. I have no words. It just means so much.’
Miss Anderson told the Mail how she had written about her Olympics dreams in her mini Jack Wills diary, but then ‘threw it away because I didn’t believe… I mean, I was 13 at the time, so why would you believe that, to be honest?
The British team competing at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Centre in Vaires-sur-Marne were (left to right) Georgina Brayshaw, Lola Anderson, Hannah Scott and Lauren Henry
Team GB’s exhausted yet triumphant women’s quadruple sculls team took gold today in a dramatic photo finish end to their race, edging just ahead of their Dutch rivals
Lola Anderson (left) broke down in tears as she told of how her late father kept a teenage diary in which she had vowed to become an Olympic champion
‘So this big old bin was just empty with my little diary in my room, apart from this one page which was brightly scribbled in pink highlighter pen.
‘My dad read it and he kept it. He saw this before I did – he saw the potential that I had.’
In 2019, her beloved father was in intensive care in hospital, stricken with leukaemia. Wiping away tears, Miss Anderson recalled: ‘The doctors were like, you’ve got a couple of days left to live. That is when he gave me the note back.
‘As a result, he gave me that parting gift of showing me how much he believed in me by giving me back that note. I could go on and on about how much I wish he was here, but in some ways he is here, because he saw this coming from a way out.
‘I can just be very proud of him for that because I am very, very proud of the type of man that he was.’
The triumphant British team are seen being congratulated by Germany’s bronze medallists
Lola Anderson (right) was delighted to clinch victory though became tearful when interviewed
Miss Anderson, from Richmond-upon-Thames, whose mother Jill was cheering her on at the Vaires-sur-Marne nautical stadium east of Paris, said the cherished note was now kept in a tin of keepsakes in her bedroom.
‘It’s a piece of paper that is the most valuable thing I have – maybe now joint with this,’ she said of the gold medal hanging round her neck. The rower said she looked forward to showing the medal to her children one day, then laughed and added: ‘I haven’t even got a boyfriend!’
The victorious rowers were presented with their medals by Princess Anne. Miss Henry, of Lutterworth, Leicestershire, said: ‘She was like, oh the race was a bit close for her liking. Princess Anne had some great words, telling us to just enjoy it.’
