Vivid: Women and Sports, the international foundation, recently chose you as its Woman of the Year. How do you feel about that?
Elisabeta Lipa: It is a great honour. Unfortunately, on 18th October I'm due to receive two awards: one is the Thomas Keller trophy, for the best rower in the world, given by the International Olympic Committee, in Lausanne. The Women and Sports award is given in New York, the same day! I can't miss either of them. I hope the awards ceremony in New York can be delayed at least one day, so I could fly from the

Committee straight there. It is a once-in-a-lifetime award, it won't happen ever again for me, and I am hoping I can participate in ceremonies.

You have almost 25 years experience in rowing. How did your career begin? Who influenced you earlier on?
I was in my second year of high school in Botosani, in north-eastern Romania. The club Olympia in Bucharest was looking for recruits. The coach who chose me was Ileana Pavel. I came to Bucharest not having any clue about rowing, and if someone had told me I was going do it far so many years I would have said he was crazy. Sometimes I can't believe that it has lasted this long. In a moment of enlightenment, my parents let me move to Bucharest .

Was your parents' influence decisive for your coming to Bucharest ?
They were both very emotional when I left Botosani, when I was only 16. I was all alone, my parents couldn't come and live with me, but they trusted me enough and they supported me all along. I had no relatives in Bucharest. There was nobody here to help me, except for my coach and team mates, but my parents said ''If you like it, then go! We are with you.'' I don't know what I loved so much about it, but I stayed. And for that, and for what followed, I am grateful to them.

I gather you didn't attend a high school that was big on sport. How hard was it to catch up with the training, to keep up with the hard schedule?
It was incredibly hard to be as competitive as my colleagues, especially because I had training and I was also attending classes; until the end of year eleven I was going to school every day. When I made the Olympic team, I was forced to give up classes, and I only showed up at the end of the term to take exams in order to pass the academic year. It was hard, but it was worth the effort.

You are now a colonel in the Interior Ministry. Are you a person who likes to command?
Actually, I am a Chief-Commissioner, with the same rank as a colonel. Throughout my sporting career I've retired three times, during which time I took great pleasure in going to work. They even ask me now. ''What are you going to do next?'' I can't answer that. My job in the police is definitely an option. But sport is in my blood and it's hard to get away from it.

How can you be into rowing in Romania, given the conditions provided here?
We lack anything like the conditions provided to professionals from other countries. It is very difficult for us not to have an Olympic-quality racetrack. We train on four channels, or corridors, in Snagov. They have to move the signposts in the water so that we can row. Actually we don't really row there - rather, we play at rowing because the conditions are so bad. Other rowing teams come here, like Germany, for instance, or Russia, the Dutch, the Greeks. They visit the Snagov base and feel like we're joking when we say that that is where we train. They say, ''Still, please tell us where the Olympic team is trained''. They cannot believe we can prepare ourselves here and achieve these extraordinary results, with the problems we have with the boats, with the bottom of the lake full of weeds - it has been years since anyone invested in this place. I really hope something will be done, especially as the government has promised us. If they build a six-corridor racing track in Snagov, I will also participate in the Beijing Olympics, as I have promised.

Do these difficult conditions push you and you teammates to achieve outstanding results?
Yes, you know we do feel like we are making a sacrifice here. It pushes you to the point at which it makes you angry, especially considering that rowing is an endurance sport, which you cannot practice over a short distance. We need long distances. And every year, this distance gets shorter. We'll end up rowing as if we were in a bath tub.

Everyone looks to you as the leader of the team. What is your relationship to your boat mates?
It's great, very close. We get along very well. Last year when I returned to the Olympic team there were young girls in the eights crew - two of them were in Athens and I think of them as 'my' girls. I always tried to get close to my colleagues. I never said ''I'm Elisabeta Lipa and I rule here. You will do as I say or I will tear you into pieces''. I thought we should be friends, have a good relationship. Some of them addressed me ''Ma'm Lipa''. If we are boat mates we cannot address one another that way. I believe I earned their sympathy and trust by my way of being. They are my best friends.

What does a training session mean?
Six hours a day, mostly spent in the gym and in warmer weather on the water. That would kill the average person, with 180 to 200 heartbeats per minute, but to us it is quite normal. If the trainer finds us with a heartbeat reading below that, he criticises us for not having rowed hard enough.

There are some big names in sport from Moldavia . Does it seem to you that Moldavians are running the world of sports, at least nationally?
Honestly, yes. In rowing, Moldavians are the best by far. Actually that's true for other sports as well, such as gymnastics. They are more serious, more dedicated. They do their job well and that shows.

What do you think of during a race - if you have time to think of anything, that is?
I sometimes joke with the girls saying that we think of all our debts and all our sins in six minutes! You can only think of what you have to do, because competing in the eights crew is very difficult. You need to focus a lot of attention as any mistake can take you off the course. It can cost you four years' work.

You took part in all trials and finals. Which do you find the easiest and which the most difficult?
The hardest but also the most fulfilling is the singles. There is no one to talk to. You're all alone, there is no one to help you. Inside the crew, when you have a moment of weakness one of the team mates helps you out. Whereas in the singles race, if you're down, you are out of the race for good. When I was young I preferred these races to team races. The effort is the same, but it is much easier to overcome your emotions when there is someone to help you.

When do you have time for your family?
I rarely do. We have finally managed to get together at home for the events after the Olympics. It's hard. It's painful that you must first of all sacrifice your family and when it comes to children it's even harder. I have a little boy, Dragos, who is turning seven next month. He has been with me permanently since I came back. When he opens his eyes and sees I'm not there he goes ''Where's Mom?'' He's afraid that I'll leave. He usually stays with his father and he has also had a babysitter for five years. She is his second mother. Her name is Maria and whenever he wants to call for me he first says ''Mar-'' and then he says ''mom''.

Do you take him with you to training sessions?
I have him with me during training as much as possible. And now that he's grown up he asks me, ''Why don't you get me a passport and take me with you?'' And I tell him that I can't do that because I can't leave him alone and I can't take Maria with me either. And I can't take care of him as I have competitions and training. He answers ''You know what? I'll stay alone. You'll give me money, I'll go to a restaurant to eat and you'll come pick me up when you're back. So that we can stay together a bit.'' I want to have a second child very much and I hope that will happen soon.

Does your status change depending on the number of medals? How do average people and international officials regard you?
After so many years in rowing and six Olympics they have had it with hearing my name and have no other choice but to recognise me! After the Athens Olympics there are people stopping me on the street saying ''I cried during your race''. Everyone cried this year. But I have five other Olympics behind me and no one had ever cried before.

How were the first Olympics you were in?
It was the easiest and the most enjoyable in my opinion. Maybe because I was 20 years old and had a different way of thinking, a different outlook. After the strictness within our borders back then, I went to a democratic country where I saw what I hadn't even seen in pictures back home. Los Angeles is the closest to my heart. That and the most recent Olympics, of course.

How did you feel carrying the Romanian flag in Athens ?
Carrying your country's flag is a moment that very few sportspeople have the chance to experience so it was a unique situation for me as well. I felt like an accomplished sportswoman then.

After having won this medal you said that you do not dedicate it to anyone, that it is yours only. What made it different than the others?
There were Olympic Games when I dedicated the medal to the Romanian Communist Congress, then to the Federation, to the coach, to my colleagues. But now, especially since I said it would be my last Games, I felt it ended so beautifully. I won the gold medal at 40 years of age. I think I deserve something for myself after all that work.

What makes you stay in sport?
Well, I don't know if there is a specific reason. Having been in sport for 24 years, you can only be close to all that it means. You would be soulless to turn your back on it completely, to say, ''That's it. I've had enough. I don't want to know about sport any more.'' You're in it with all your heart. You can't succeed otherwise.