Gary Lineker has called her "the most extraordinary sportswoman I have ever met", and unquestionably she was Britain's most enduring and consistently successful one.

Yet away from the waterways, few may know of Anna Hemmings, despite her possessing the photogenic appeal of a top model and a masters degree in economics.

Had Hemmings been in a mainstream rather than slipstream sport, undoubtedly she would be as much a household name - and maybe even as rich - as the tax exile Paula Radcliffe, whose long-distance feats she easily emulated as the world's premier marathon canoeist.

Hemmings retired last year with an MBE after winning six World Marathon Championship gold medals – equalling the best-ever in the history of the sport - and competing in two Olympic Games eight years apart (Sydney and Beijing) in the K-1 500 metres sprint.

Canoe marathon is a gut-wrenching sport, raced over 26 miles like its road-running counterpart and lasting over two-and-a-half hours. Competitors have to leave the water at four portage points and run for some 1,200 metres carrying their boats, against rivals who can be as treacherous as the water.

Yet Hemmings was once told by doctors she might never race again after being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a debilitating illness which left her exhausted and aching every day, unable to take even basic light exercise.

However, she later learned about reverse therapy, an innovative and successful new treatment, and in February 2005 she was able to resume training again, going on to win a clean sweep of national, European and world titles.

She says of her illness: "It was the most challenging, frustrating thing I have experienced. No one seemed to have the answer. It was very difficult when people kept saying to me, 'Get your act together Anna'.

"Then I started reverse therapy, which recognises that mind and body play a part in illnesses linked to a glandular disorder."

She first broke into the top flight of the sport in 1997 aged 20, when she won her first European Marathon Championship, before going on to win the World Championship, the youngest competitor to do so. She also became the first British female canoeist to win both European and world titles and only the second person to win both the singles and doubles marathon world titles.



Then living by the Thames in Shepperton, she says she tried "every sport under the sun" when she was growing up, from ice skating to judo, but paddled her own canoe since she was eight.

"At 14 I was selected for the junior World Championships and two years later I won the junior marathon World Cup. After that it was canoeing for me, and I dedicated my life to it."

It is one of the curious anomalies of Lottery funding which is required to follow the Government edict of "no compromise" that one of Britain's supreme sportswomen never received a penny outside of her personal sponsorship, and some support from SportsAid, as her marathon speciality was not an Olympic discipline.

Just as well then that that she had always been self-supportive, establishing herself as one of sport's top motivational speakers, lecturing a range of people from global business conglomerates to schoolchildren on how to maximise their potential, believing that every individual has a talent and ability to achieve beyond their imagination.

This has now led to her involvement - with husband Neil Templeton - in a revolutionary project which she says, gets to the very heart of sport. Literally.

If you think sport is just about knocking a ball around or running fast, forget it. Hemmings says it is all about heart.

Or rather HeartMath, which after 20 years of research in California is developing here "by identifying a psycho-physiological state in which the interactions between the heart, brain and nervous systems become synchronised to help athletes get in the zone for optimal performance, eliminating negative and inefficient emotions and managing anxiety and pressure".

To the lay person it may sound like a sort of sports scientology, and here I confess to being something of an old-fashioned sceptic myself when it comes to psychology and sport. I have never been convinced that sport and shrinks necessarily make a winning team. This stems from a  time I covered the Winter Olympics in Albertville back in 1992 when GB driver Mark Tout and his four-man bobbers were in pole position overnight but their psychologist declined to let them have a press conference and instead hustled them away to spend the night locked with him "in the zone." They finished seventh.

But Anna presents a convincing case for HeartMath. "I am not a sports psychologist but I am a trained HeartMath practitioner.

"The reason why it is different is a lot of sports psychology works on the think, feel, principle whereas Heartmath is about changing your physiology. If you can change this you can change the way you think and feel and this affects your behaviour and ultimately your performance."



Hemmings and hubby own a company called Beyond the Barriers and are licensed HeartMath practitioners in the UK.

Apparently it has been well used in the US commercial field by companies like Shell, and with NASA, and American war veterans associations. Only fairly recently has it been applied to sport.

"It was a bit of a well-kept secret," says Hemmings. "But it interested me because sport is my passion, and we are now working with athletes and training sports psychologists and coaches in the technique."

Golf is one sport where it is being successfully applied and the former Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosman  is among those who have been helped by it.  "What HeartMath is really about is his helping you manage your emotions to alleviate a stress and anxiety both in and out of the sports arena."

In the UK the GB canoe kayak team have embarked on a programme, as have the women's diving team. Hemmings is also involved in talks with a couple of football clubs.

She says that in Denmark all sports psychologists been trained in the HeartMath programme, and it is employed by pro ice hockey teams in Sweden and by Canadian swimmers.

Anyone who would like more information can contact Anna Hemmings on [email protected].

If there has been a tougher, fitter, more resolute sportswoman in the land than Hemmings, we have yet to encounter her. But the nearest she came to to national acclaim was a few years ago when she was interviewed on BBC Radio along with a number of other unsung world champions.

The programme went out around midnight, and Hemmings recalls: "They had spent a lot of time talking to the paper, scissors, rock world champion. I thought to myself, 'Bloody hell, I've been slogging my guts out every day for 15 years, giving up virtually everything for my sport, never partying, and here I am being bracketed with some bloke who goes ching, chang cholla!"

While, at 34, Hemmings no longer paddles over 26 miles, she is looking forward to another sort of marathon test. She is in training for the London run, which she will do to raise money for SportsAid. "They helped me when I was competing so it is nice to be able to give something back." A heartfelt gesture, no less.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.