Steph Cook

Stephanie Cook was a rower and distance runner at both Cambridge and Oxford Universities before she noticed a poster on a college bulletin board for the Oxford University Modern Pentathlon Club. After completing a degree in medicine she combined pentathlon training and competition with the long hours of a junior doctor but a silver medal in the team event at the 1998 World Championships convinced her to train full time in the run-up to the Sydney Olympics.

She then embarked on a run of six successive silver medals at major championships as World and European team silver medals in 1999 were repeated and added to the same combination of individual medals in 2000. At the 2000 Olympic Games Cook was never placed higher than seventh before the final running phase but she was so superior a runner to those ahead of her that she gained nearly a minute on the leaders and crossed the line three seconds ahead of the silver medalist.

The following year was to be her last in the sport and she exited in a blaze of glory by winning both European and World titles. At the end of 2001 she travelled on behalf of the medical charity Merlin to treat the victims of the Gujuarat earthquake in India before returning to her career as a doctor. A qualified surgeon specializing in vascular surgery, she sits on the Athletes’ Committee of LOCOG (the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games).