A GOLD medal at the Olympic Games does not come easy, more so after previous attempts have come up short.

That probably explains why relief is the first emotion Matthew Langridge remembers feeling after reaching the finish before anybody else during last month's final in Rio.

“It was like a valve being released,” he said, croakily, to me the following morning.

Pride, and with it a realisation of the magnitude of his remarkable achievement, will no doubt follow when time allows for a reflective moment.

Langridge, who took a chance when he climbed into a boat at Northwich Rowing Club while in his early teens, has won three medals – one of each colour – in four appearances in an Olympic regatta.

Just let that sink in.

Closer to home, he is now the first athlete from Northwich to win an Olympic title.

Shirley Strong, a sprint hurdler from Cuddington, had gone close when she finished second in Los Angeles in 1984.

Back then, Langridge was one.

He tried rowing not because he was thinking then of standing on the podium’s top step, just as he did while bathed in Brazilian sunshine six weeks ago.

“I enjoyed it, so I kept going,” he said.

“It made me happy, so I wanted to spend more time there.”

“I had fun, and they encouraged me to improve.”

The dream of having a gold medal draped around his neck, or in his pocket as it was when we spoke after his success, was something that followed later.

What Langridge has done is prove it is possible.

Pictures of him, from those as a lanky, awkward schoolboy to those in which he holds medals won in Beijing and then London, adorn the wall in the club’s boathouse next to the River Weaver.

Members there will have to make space for one more now.

Those that stood screaming at a television screen that Saturday during his finest – and most memorable – race of all did not hide what it meant to see one of their own reach the pinnacle of their favourite sport.

Whenever the camera lingered with Langridge in shot, they cheered, arms aloft.

And they did so loudly too, bursting with pride.

“Rowing is different to what people think,” Kevin Jump, who coaches promising youngsters as a volunteer at Northwich, said to me afterwards.

“You’ve been writing about this lad who used to go to Hartford High School – well, he’s just become an Olympic champion.”

What could be more inspiring than that?

Northwich Town Council has arranged a victory parade to celebrate Matthew Langridge's achievement. It takes place next Saturday, October 1.

The details are here.