Gold medallist who lived on value bread

AS an Olympic champion, Ben Hunt-Davis can command a four-figure sum as an after dinner speaker at corporate events.

But it wasn’t always like that.

When he was a member of the Great Britain rowing squad in the Nineties, he was so poor that he lived on a diet of value loaves and boiled rice with mayonnaise.

He also couldn’t afford a car so would cycle to Henley from his home in Oxford and back with up to seven-and-a-half hours of training in between.

He tried to make ends meet in the little spare time he had by working as a labourer and a swimming pool cleaner.



Hunt-Davis, 43, told the the Thisismoney website: “For most of my time in the national rowing team we received no money. This was before the National Lottery started.

“When you are training full-time, seven days a week, and going away on training camps, it is hard to get part-time work.

“I would often run out of money. Some months I would make £400, others I would make nothing.

“I remember that a Tesco ‘value’ white bread loaf cost 19p. If you bought three you could survive for the day on 57p.

“I would also buy a 5kg bag of rice, cook it and then eat it with a dollop of mayonnaise for days on end. I lived like that for six years.”

This dedication paid off for the former Shiplake College student as he won a gold medal in the men’s eights at Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, the first time a British crew had won the event since 1912.