Martin Cross sat down with world champion James Robson in the Leander Club library to talk Newcastle, Paris, Cambridge, Shanghai, and the work still ahead.

 The following conversation has been edited and abridged for length; watch the full interview here.

Photo Great Britain’s James Robson cools off after winning the 2025 World Rowing Championships in Shanghai, China.

You came to Leander after Newcastle in 2018. What is it about the Blue Star that keeps producing international rowers?

Angelo [Savarino, Head Coach of Newcastle University Boat Club] has been one of the most transformative people in my life. I turned up at Newcastle not really knowing whether I was going to be a rower. I’d started rowing six months before I left school, had a gap year where I hadn’t touched an oar. I walked upstairs at the freshers’ fair and Tom Ford pointed at me and said, “Do you want to come rowing?” Angelo taught me so much about pushing yourself to your limits and exceeding your own expectations. The programme he instilled and the mentality he instilled in so many of his athletes, I mean, in Paris we had six Newcastle athletes in the team. He’s been at the club 20 years. He won the Jim London Award this year for his service. He loves pointing out on the honours board: the honours Newcastle had before he arrived (Robson motions a short list), and then the long laundry list of people afterwards.

Tom Barras [Tokyo Olympic M4x silver medallist] has retired. You’re now the oldest man on the British men’s squad.

There are conversations that happen that I don’t really understand what people are talking about sometimes. Luckily I’ve got a couple of the lads who take pity on me and try to let me know exactly what’s going on. But it’s fun to be around young, energetic people. It makes going to training quite a fun place.

What’s your 2km PB?

I feel I can say, because mine was done a long time ago. On the Newcastle training programme, actually. 5:48.2.

There’s a view that the Caversham programme isn’t designed to produce best 2km scores. How fair is that?

There are lots of people that come into the team and pull PBs. The programme is difficult. There is a lot of mileage. The 2km erg is a tool for selection and a physiological marker, but we’re aware that the most important thing is how we perform on the water and at international races. My focus has shifted more to the on-water performances. I’m here to try and win gold medals. I’m not necessarily here to put a big number on the erg.

You were reserve at Paris. Then you went to Cambridge, won the Boat Race, and six months later you’re a world champion. What changed?

A lot, I think. Paris was a very interesting experience. It was a massive honour to be there. Will Stewart [2025 European M8+ champion] and I had been rowing together since 2016, and it was lovely to go through that with him. We had a final in Lucerne. We managed to turn over the eventual Olympic champions, the Sinković brothers, in a rep in Varese. But the thing with being the reserve is it’s a wonderful honour, and you also really realise how close you were but how far away you are. Morgan Bolding [Paris Olympic champion] was ill before the Olympics, so I actually did the final speed order in the eight, and the first couple of sessions in Paris. Will and I were constantly jumping in and out of crews to help the guys prepare. That’s part of your job.

Then, getting ready for the Boat Race eight or nine months later, I was in a very different headspace. Working with Rob [Baker] was wonderful. He really instilled a lot of confidence in how I was moving the boat. We made some good changes in how I was propelling the boat. And going back into a university atmosphere of almost carefree, fun rowing, I was just really enjoying turning up to training every day.

Talk us through the technical changes. What are you seeing if you compare video of yourself before Paris and during the Boat Race?

I’m moving off the front end now much more in time with how quick the boat’s moving. The boat’s moving at its slowest around the front end. So my aim coming into and out of the front should be connection, not work on the handle. And for me, it’s a stillness around the back. It’s a stillness of my body position and the control of it. In the Paris cycle I was probably trying to create too much power and putting myself in weak body positions. Now I’m much more in control and thinking, how can I maximise my effective length, not push my overall length?

Rob gives you freedom to make changes. He encourages you to feel them. All of the training is very intentional towards how we want to race at pace. He’d say, “This change we’re making now in a 24km paddle on a Sunday morning in November when it’s freezing cold is going to pay dividends on April 13th when we’re racing Oxford.” It was a very freeing experience.

How surprised were you by the Boat Race result, given Oxford’s strength?

We were very confident in our speed. We’d had a really good training camp in Avis, Portugal over New Year. Rob’s coaching was very focused on us, on what we were going to do and how we were going to attack the race. The other thing I found interesting was that even the day before, sat there after our practice start, we were tinkering with stuff and trying to get better. That attitude of constant improvement is why Rob is so good.

Douwe [de Graaf] and I had come in with experience of moving sweep boats, George [Bourne] with sculling boats. But we weren’t Boat Race veterans. So when it came to preparation, it was, “Luca [Ferraro], Noam [Mouelle], what do we do? What am I going to feel? How many people are there going to be?” We came in with the attitude of, we’ll try and make the boat go quick, but guys, how do we win a Boat Race? That was quite powerful for our group.

After the Boat Race, you formed the four with Dan Graham. How did that crew come together?

I’ve known Dan since he was about 16. I actually coached him in his single when he was a junior at Tyne United. He’s a very good friend. For Dan, it was the three of us coming in going, “You’ve done the international racing in the four. What’s the field like? How are they going to race?” But then he’s trying to slot into how we’re rowing.

We sat in loads of different orders. I started at stroke, then we put the bucket in. The only constant was Dan in bow because he was the only one willing to take on the responsibility at Longridge. There was always raw speed. Under the water it was always pretty solid. It was meshing how we were moving out of the water that took time, and gaining the confidence to have those conversations.

Who’s stroking, and why does George work there?

Douwe really enjoys following someone and moulding the rhythm from within. Sneakily, he’s a bit of a workhorse. He connects phenomenally well around the front and he likes getting after it. Freeing him up in the three seat seems to work. George is a born leader, pardon the pun. Putting him in stroke empowered him. We wanted him to know: you’re not a sculler who’s a sweeper. You are a world-class sweeper.

Photo George Bourne of Great Britain

The crew did a 2km piece before China that had people talking. What did that do for your confidence?

I’m going to plead the fifth on the speeds. What it did was, we’d just got back from Portugal, we were about to head to China, and we’d not had the racing experience the rest of the team had had. We were a new combination. Coming out of it, we were like, right, we’re in the right ballpark. The challenge now is how well can we travel and adapt to the conditions, not, do we need to keep finding more speed?

The lake in Shanghai was so bouncy. We were maybe getting 10 or 15 strokes of flat water a session. George’s senior international experience was invaluable. He was saying, “When I raced in Racice one time, the first nice row I got was the heat.” I had to have almost blind faith in that being the case. And it turned out to be.

Did you go to Shanghai to win?

I think we went with the aim of rowing well. I wanted to put down a good performance, grow through the regatta, and learn something. I would have been disappointed had we not won, but that’s because I felt very confident in the guys around me. It wasn’t the thing I was going out there to do. I was going out there to row well.

You’ve dealt with a knee injury and atrial fibrillation. How have those shaped things?

The knee took a couple of years to figure out. We thought it was a strength issue, a weakness in my left quad. Then a scan found an osteochondral defect, a fractured piece of my femur that had chipped off. When my kneecap rolled over it, I’d get a shooting pain and my quad would just turn off. Sean O’Leary did the surgery at the end of the 2023 season, lifted the kneecap, took the piece out. The recovery was quick.

The atrial fibrillation may come from training hard for about 12 years. Sometimes the muscle wall in my heart struggles to send an electrical impulse through and the two ends get slightly out of sync. The first time it happened, I was out training in the pair with Will Stewart, and he was so calm. He just said, “Right, let’s chill, let’s sit here for a sec.” Dr Sanjay Sharma did an exercise-induced ECG and said he felt really confident in my heart health. I have a pill that sits in my kit bag in case of an episode. Touch wood, it’s not happening frequently. It’s something I live with, and it hasn’t changed my life.

What are the chances the four re-forms for the Worlds in Amsterdam?

By no means are we selected. We’re all rowing in pairs combinations for trials. It would be lovely to be in the four again and defend the title, but we’re all competitors and the team is so strong. If there’s a better combination, we’re a pretty good benchmark. And if there’s a way to make it faster, let’s go and do it.

Where can you still improve?

The rowing is never the finished article. I think it was Alex Gregory who said it’s a sport where you’re constantly in pursuit of perfection and you’re never going to reach it. I want to get back to PB shape tied in with a better framework of rowing than I had in 2018. I want to keep improving on the water. At the moment I’m taking it one day at a time and trying to get better each session.

Photo GBR M4- at the 2025 World Rowing Championships in Shanghai, China.

Watch the full interview here