James Cracknell brands wife ‘annoyingly forthright and opinionated’ but says they’re ‘still mates’ despite his ‘selfish’ glory hunting
The Olympic rower today said him and Beverley were 'still mates' and that her 'brutal honesty' had always helped him
OLYMPIC ROWER James Cracknell has branded his wife “annoyingly fortnight and opinionated” but insists they are “still mates” following their split.
Last weekend Cracknell became the oldest winner of the Boat Race at the age of 46.
A little over a week before the race the Cracknells released a statement announcing they had “quietly separated” last year after 17 years of marriage.
Cracknell today insisted they were "still mates" and that her "brutal honesty has always helped me".
It comes after Beverley Turner penned a newspaper column on Monday detailing how her marriage to the obsessive fitness fanatic disintegrated.
She revealed how their relationship was never the same after Cracknell was hit by a truck’s wing mirror at 60mph as he cycled in Arizona in 2010. He was in a coma for 10 days and it left the gold medallist with epilepsy, a changed personality and short temper.
Writing in she said: “Of course, I would go insane with anger if I attributed the end of our marriage solely to the personality changes that occurred after the accident. That’s too simplistic. It wasn’t perfect before.
“Being married to an extremely driven man can be exciting and interesting (and certainly pays the bills), but as any woman will admit, there comes a time when you are sick of waking up alone on holiday because these alpha males are already at the laptop or on the rowing machine.”
She wrote how she realised family life was simply better when Cracknell went away for six weeks during an appearance on Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls.
When he returned she had to decide whether she could live with her husband and his "exhausting, self-centred pursuits" for the rest of her life.
Discussing his competing in the Boat Race she said: "James has spoken publicly about this latest feat, demonstrating to his children that you can do anything you set your mind to. He won’t mind me admitting that I consider that to be bollocks — I wouldn’t want my children to view such an exit from familial responsibilities as something to aspire to."
'WE ARE STILL MATES'
Responding to that Cracknell said the separation had “been a long time coming”.
But, speaking to the Daily Telegraph, he said: “It wasn't going to university or competing in the Boat Race that ended the marriage. And it wasn't even the accident, although our marriage was dealt a bad hand with that. As anybody who is married or has been married will know, break-ups are far more complex than anybody else [outside the marriage] really knows.
"There's this perception that I've left my family to go off to Cambridge, selfishly, but that's a little exaggerated. And while, yes, it may seem selfish, it also pays the bills.”
In a further Instagram post today, the Olympic rower wrote: “It’s been quite a week. Sunday was an amazing day and the rest of the week has seen a lot of speculation about why our 19 year relationship ended last year.
"I knew Bev was writing the piece that appeared on Monday I married an annoyingly forthright and opinionated woman and I have never wanted to oppress that in her.
“As you can see we are still mates and her brutal honesty has always helped me but never more so than when I was getting back to full mental and physical health.
“Sunday showed I’m there physically AND I’ve gotta hit the books to show my faculty that I’m there mentally. I’ll support Bev 100% she’s heading out with mates tonight and I’m home with the kids! Back to reality.”
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Cracknell met Turner in 2000, just after he had won his first Olympic gold. The couple tied the knot in 2002 and he won his second Olympic gold in Athens in 2004.
In July 2010, just before Turner discovered she was pregnant with their third child, Cracknell suffered a near fatal brain injury when he was cycling, rowing and running across America.
The cycling crash left him with a frontal lobe injury, which is the part of the brain that controls personality,
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