Ollie Cook

Oliver Cook is a British Olympian, World & European Rowing Champion, adventurer, and acclaimed international speaker who helps audiences rethink performance, resilience, and what it truly means to succeed.

Ollie started rowing at his local rowing club Eton Excelsior Boat Club aged 12 and through school in Abingdon. In 2007 Ollie rowed across the English Channel for Motor Neurone Disease Research becoming the second youngest person to achieve the feat (behind his younger brother). Ollie spent a year teaching (and rowing) in South Africa before becoming captain of the University of London Boat Club while studying at LSE.

In 2011 Ollie was part of the Row Zambezi Expedition. The first time anyone had rowed the 1,000km Upper Zambezi River, raising more than £25,000 for the clean water charity Village Water.

In 2012 Ollie was selected as one of the youngest to join the GB Olympic Squad which began a nine year career in the team. During this time Ollie was the team “spare” for three seasons (which is possibly a record for the team!) before winning the World Championships in the Coxed Pair in 2016.

Ollie then spent a year at Oxford University where he won the Boat Race and returned to the GB team while studying for a PhD. It was following a sports induced injury that Ollie stopped his PhD and undertook instead a self styled “PhD in Performance”.

Ollie would then go on to be selected for the Tokyo Olympic Games in the coxless four before they were postponed during the Covid pandemic. Racing at the postponed Olympic Games in 2021 Ollie’s boat veered off the course in the final stages of the race, losing a medal and the first time GB hadn’t won this event for 20 years. Ollie talks about this experience and some of the lessons he learned and is still learning from what happened.

SPEAKING TOPICS

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster; And treat those two imposters just the same”

Ollie often begins his talks with this iconic line from Rudyard Kipling’s poem If. Ollie spent a decade in one of Team GB’s highest-performing teams, winning World & European titles before racing at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021. In the final stages of the Olympic final, his crew veered off course– losing a medal and an event GB had won for 20 years.

Ollie speaks candidly about this moment and the high-performance lessons developed over years living and training as an Olympic athlete. Drawing on what Ollie describes as his “PhD in Performance”, he unpacks the physical, psychological and philosophical insights he has gained and how they have relevance for us all as we cultivate resilience and navigate the meaning of success.

Keynotes have included –

The Meaning of Success: In the closing stages of Ollie’s Olympic Final his crew veered across their lane almost hitting the chasing Italians. They came fourth, losing a medal and becoming the first time in 20 years GB hadn’t won this event at the Olympic Games. A complete disaster? Or was it? Ollie offers a fascinating insight into the meaning of success, from the highs of performing at an Olympic level to the lows of missing out. Ollie shares his learnings and how you can define success, bounce back from setbacks and realise that perhaps winning is not everything.

High-Performance: Through the lens of an Olympic Athlete and his “PhD in Performance”, Ollie offers a unique insight into how to develop a high-performance culture both individually and as a team – what it requires, physically, psychologically and philosophically and how you can build these foundations.

Topics covered include –

• Performance
• Resilience
• Meaning of Success
• Leadership
• Dealing with Setbacks
• Olympics
• The SDGs