At 14, athlete tore diary page with her Olympic dream. She cried seeing what dad handed her in his final moments

When Lola Anderson first dared to dream of Olympic gold, she was just 14 and too embarrassed to say it aloud. She scribbled the words into her diary: "My name is Lola Anderson and I think it would be my biggest dream in life to go to the Olympics in rowing and if possible win a gold for GB." Then she tore the page out and tossed it in the bin, but her father, Don Anderson, found the note while clearing out her trash. Without saying a word, he placed it in a safety deposit box and held onto it for years. He only gave it back in October 2019, while in a hospital battling terminal cancer.

"He didn’t have to take it out of the bin. At first maybe he thought it was a bit funny and it would be sweet to hold on to and give back to me one day, regardless of what happened," Anderson told the BBC. That torn diary page reflected a key finding from a study in Sport Psychologist of nearly 330 Olympic athletes across disciplines, which showed that writing down specific, challenging goals is a practice many top performers swear by. Nearly all athletes in the study said setting goals just beyond their current ability helped them stay motivated and focused.

Two months later, Don passed away, and the piece of paper he returned now holds a permanent place in Anderson’s life, carrying a dream she recently turned into reality. She and teammates Hannah Scott, Lauren Henry, and Georgie Brayshaw pulled off a stunning comeback in the women’s quadruple sculls, overtaking the Netherlands in the final 200 meters to win Team GB’s first-ever Olympic gold in the event, with the official margin being just 0.15 seconds. "As soon as we crossed the finish line and I realised what we’d done, my body took over before my mind had appreciated it. I just started crying," she said. "Yesterday was definitely an emotional rollercoaster. Seeing how many people saw my tears and related to them in some way was so touching," she said the following day. 

Lola never expected rowing would be her path. Her father had rowed at university in South Africa, and her older sister and twin brother both took up the sport, but she wasn’t interested at first. "I honestly couldn’t stay dry for the majority of my sessions — I was more swimming than I was rowing," she said. Still, her dad encouraged her to keep going. "He would encourage me to put myself back in the boat again after each capsize and keep going and enjoy sport for sport, not the results," she said. In 2012, when she watched Helen Glover and Heather Stanning win gold at the London Olympics, something had changed.

"The power of watching people achieve it really does lead the way. When I was a young girl, I struggled to see the way in sport, and to hold on to just being a girl," she recalled. From there, Anderson trained at the Surbiton High School Boat Club and began building a career that would eventually include World Championship gold and a European title. Now she has the Olympic medal to match, and a note from a time when she doubted it was possible. "It’s a piece of paper, but it’s the most valuable thing I have. Maybe jointly with this medal now," she said.