THE King’s School may still be celebrating Tom James’ second Olympic gold medal and a maiden silver for Chris Bartley, but is not the end of the school’s production line of talent.

Director of rowing David Blackham hopes the pair will return to show off their medals and give further encouragement to students who could follow them into the elite rowing family.

“These guys are now legends and to come back and spend half a day at the school will make a huge amount of difference, it makes it real,” he said.

“It means the kids realise they can do it in the future, they realise it’s something they can go for. With rowing everyone can get to a level where they can compete. There is a certain amount of natural ability at Olympic level but you need to combine that with mental application and the support and with GB you have all three.

“Chris and Tom have natural ability, an amazing attitude towards their sport and they’ve got a GB rowing set-up admired around the world.

“Success is thanks to a combination of all of those elements but ultimately it’s those guys that go and race and they’ve got there through hard work.

“We’ve got a great coaching team, we’ve got students who want to achieve and work hard and we’ve got a school which supports the rowing programme.

“I think King’s is very lucky in that and I think it’s a shame that more schools don’t have rowing clubs there and the opportunities for the kids.

“We’ve got a girls system now which is very new and they’re starting to perform as well which is great to see because there’s very few schools which have both boys and girls set-ups.

“It’s a shame the women’s crew with our own Olivia Whitlam couldn’t get on the rostrum too.”

Coach Duncan Little, who was one of the first to work with James, Bartley and Whitlam, believes a good grounding in the fundamentals is what has made the King’s School rowing programme so successful.

“Steve Redgrave making the lightweight fours favourites last week was probably the kiss of death,” he joked. “But the finish was incredibly close and they can’t do anything other than be proud of themselves.

“We like to teach them well from day one and Chris was a perfect example. He was very small when he started, he didn’t make the top boat when he was 14 but by the time he was 15 he had grown a bit and he was in the top boat.

“He was always good technically, by the time he was 16 he rowed with Tom’s J16 at the Anglo-French. It’s by doing it well, small or large, as long as they are doing it well we don’t mind.”

And does Duncan think it is possible to spot the next potential Olympian?

“Certainly within the first year you know,” he said. “By the end of the summer holidays I usually know who’s going to be in my top crew the following year.

“Tom – certainly by the end of the first year I thought he would go on – I predicted he would be a junior international but I didn’t know what was going to come after that!”