statistic’. That was until James’s
decision in 2018 to become a mature
student and enrol for an MPhil in
Human Evolution at Peter-
h o u s e C o l l e g e ,
Cambridge. He
also decided toNEW CHAPTER:
James Cracknell says his
accident in 2010 dealt him
and wife Bev ‘a bad hand’try out for the Boat Race, and in
April, became the oldest winner in
its history when he took his place in
the Cambridge crew.
There is no argument from James
that Beverley – the mother of his
three children, Croyde, 15, Kiki,
ten, and eight-year-old Trixie – had
the patience of a saint.
Even after he announced that he
would be leaving his family for
periods to study, she fought hard to
save their marriage.
James says he believed going to
university was an opportu-
nity to ‘press the reset
button’. ‘I knew we
were in trouble,’
he says. ‘It was
our last roll of
the dice, to have
t i m e a w a y
[ f r o m e a c h
other], show
that the rea-
sons we liked
each other at
the start were
still there.
‘ B u t t h a t
didn’t happen
because we
separated so
s o o n a f t e rme going [to Cambridge]. In real-
ity, [the marriage] was already bro-
ken. I think the reality is that I
needed to do something different.
‘I didn’t want to go and do a repeat
of what I had done before in terms
of the physical thing. I wanted to
challenge myself mentally, but I
underestimated just how broken it
was for both of us, deep down.
‘I don’t think I had enough time to
speak about it. I underestimated the
amount of work [the course] would
take academically, and I underesti-
mated how interesting it was. I
knew it was going to be a hard year,
but I believed when I came back I’d
be different, more of the person
that Bev wanted, and that we
needed a break from one another.
‘I think Bev was feeling ignored
by me just living my own life, a
little bit like a lodger, being there
but not being present.
‘That wasn’t fair on her or
the kids so I wanted to hit the reset
button. But once you get too far
down the stream, it’s hard to get
back up again.
‘Then suddenly she was at home
with three kids and I had gone. The
reality is that you don’t want the
children to hear rows. They are old
enough to remember that so if wecan part ways amicably, then
that is the best way to do it.’
His new love is American fin-
ancier Jordan Connell, believed
to be in her early 30s, whom he
met at Cambridge.
Photographs of the couple –
published by The Mail on
Sunday last weekend –
showed them strolling
and kissing pas-
sionately in
a London
park near
J a m e s ’s
home. The
romance is all the more refreshing,
he says, because Jordan had no idea
who he was, or about the brain
injury – or ‘hidden illness’ as he
puts it – that torpedoed his mar-
riage. The relationship appears
serious and stable, so much so that
Jordan is looking to relocate from
New York to London in the coming
months when her new boyfriend
begins filming for Strictly.
‘It’s a definite new chapter in my
life,’ he says. ‘It’s great with Jordan.STRUGGLE: With
ex-wife Beverley Turner
(^) The Mail on Sunday September 1 • 2019
W
HEN photos of James
Cracknell emerged last
week of him kissing his
new, blonde – and younger
- girlfriend just weeks
after his divorce from his
wife of 17 years, critics
were quick to claim he was displaying all the
classic signs of a midlife crisis.
But today, in a searingly honest interview, the
double Olympic gold medallist and star of the
forthcoming series of Strictly Come Dancing
insists the truth is much more complex.
The 47-year-old reveals how a devastating
brain injury, which left him in a coma for five
days, changed his personality and left him and
his wife Beverley Turner struggling to cope.
Their marriage, he insists, had been broken for
some time before the couple announced their
split in March this year. Their divorce was final-
ised in July.
‘I would have left me a long time before we
split,’ the father of three admits. ‘I don’t think I
would have stuck it with me as long as she did.
‘Bev had it really hard. She had one husband
for the first eight years we were married and a
very, very different one for the rest.
‘Maybe I didn’t take it them [the marital prob-
lems] seriously enough, and there were improve-
ments that I should have made. I thought that
riding out the storm would be OK.
‘The reality is that when I started to think,
“OK, I really need to do something here,” Bev
had already put so much effort in that she was
understandably done.
‘It’s difficult when you’ve got three children.
It’s difficult to find the time to talk and if you
don’t open up and show how you’re really feeling
- which is what I was doing – then it’s hard to
live in that situation.’
Responsibility for the split, he says, was down
to them both: ‘If I am totally honest and were
to ask if either of us were the best versions of
ourselves, I would say no.
‘I think I was a better version of
me in the last year of our marriage
and Bev was the best version of
herself in the two years before,
which wasn’t ideal.
‘We put in the effort, nobody more
than her, but unfortunately they
didn’t coincide. That was bad plan-
ning on my part.’
The couple’s nightmare began in
2010 when James was struck from
behind by a lorry while cycling in
Arizona while making a documen-
tary for the Discovery Channel.
He fractured his skull, caus-
ing a brain injury and epilepsy
which both remain with him.
His personality was also dra-
matically altered, affecting
his temperament, memory
and concentration.
The rower, who won
gold medals at the 2000
a n d 2 0 0 4 O l y m p i c
Games in Sydney and
Athens, says 80 per
cent of those who suf-
fer a brain injury get
divorced but adds that
he and Beverley ‘were
determined not to be a
Bev had it hard.
I would have left me
a long time ago
In a candid and self-lacerating
interview on the eve of his
Strictly debut, Olympic rowing
legend James Cracknell reveals:
20
By katie hind
showbusiness editorEXCLUSIVE
INTERVIEW
The real
reason my
marriage
crumbled
...and it’s nothing to do with
my new, younger girlfriend!