Where are they now: Jim Walker

Search for Jim Walker on the internet, and it won’t be about rowing. Despite his list of rowing successes, the World Championship medallist and three-time Olympian has moved on from his former sporting life.

The British international rower, Walker talked to World Rowing from his home in Cary, North Carolina (USA) where he has just returned from the United Nations Climate Change conference, COP27. He’s been going to them since COP9.

Walker started rowing at high school as a 13-year-old. He was good at cross country running, terrible at ball sports and some wrangling by the school’s rowing coach got him to give it a go. Walker’s coxed four had some success – enough to ‘keep me going’. With the realisation that he could do the sport, the new challenges and the positive feedback, Walker’s rowing journey took off. He made Great Britain’s junior team, then the Under 23 team and on to a World Championships bronze medal as part of the British men’s eight.

“From that point it became addictive. I wanted to go to the Olympics,” says Walker who raced in the final of the eight at the Barcelona Olympic Games.

“I could have stopped after the 1992 Olympics,” says Walker, “but I wanted to take advantage of being part of an incredible sport. I also wanted to do better.” His first Olympics inspired him to go onto a second. Walker then trialled for a third, the 2000 Olympics, but, he says, life was taking over.

“I’d gone back to college to do a masters in environmental technology.” Walker missed out on the team but was already working and ready to move on.

Still Walker says the transition to life after rowing was not easy. “I had read that it takes about ten years (to transition),” says Walker, “and I think it’s about right. At that time there was no planning for life after rowing, so there wasn’t the safety net that may be there now.”

Fortunately for Walker, some of the guys he rowed with had set up a network to ease the process. He had also started working. “But it’s hard as it’s such a strong part of your identity.”

Walker’s job was with an environmental consultancy working with environmental risk for companies. He had always wanted to work in environmental activism after growing up in the country. Rowing was more like a distraction before he’d get into environmental work.

“I never saw myself as a sports person. It was just about trying it out and sticking with it.”

From that initial consultancy position, Walker co-launched The Climate Group, an international climate change organisation established to encourage major companies and sub-national governments to take action on climate change.

“We doubled in size in a short space of time,” says Walker describing offices opening in the United States, Australia, China, and India.

Walker currently works for Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL). The organisation works in partnership with the United Nations and public and private sector leaders to drive action towards affordable, sustainable energy for all by 2030 in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) .

Walker has still kept his hand in rowing through coaching his kids and he continued to coach at the local club on Jordan Lake. There’s also reunions every two or three years with his former World Championship team mates.

Rowing has also led him to involvement in the initiative Athletes of the World. He works with British national team rower Melissa Wilson and British sailing Olympic medallist Hannah Mills. The organisation is for athletes to make a positive impact on climate change. One initiative is to keep fossil fuels out of sports sponsorship.

“Athletes and celebrities have a lot of influence, so if you engage elite athletes to play a role in inspiring the next generation, the impact can be strong.”

Despite working in the thick of it, Walker remains upbeat about our future. “The people around me keep me positive and the pace of innovation is awesome. The pace of change generating everything from plant-based foods to how plastic is made to new energy technology.”