When Alison, who’s known to her rowing friends as ‘Wilma’, won her sixth consecutive World Championships medal in 1996 she became Great Britain’s most sucessful female rower, a title she held for over ten years.

From being told by her university coach that she’d never get anywhere as a rower because she was 5’3″ to becoming World Champion in the lightweight coxless four in 1993, Alison’s rowing story is one of perseverance, underpinned by positivity and a high-level of personal organisation, her coach Bill Mason, and her hugely supportive employer Moore Stephens.

Read Alison’s rowing story here >>

The photo at the top of this page shows (from left) Alison, Tonia Williams, coach Bill Mason, Annamarie Stapleton and Jane Hall after winning the lightweight coxless fours at the World Rowing Championships in 1993 and is from Alison Purnell’s personal collection.