Even after winning Gold at the Olympic Games four years ago, coxswain Brian Price still gets nervous when he sits down in the stern of the boat.

"There are two reasons to get nervous," Brian says. "One is if you're unprepared, and that's the bad one because you could have prevented it.

"But the other one is because you care. And I so badly want these guys to do well."

Before the starting gun goes off, Brian notices the stillness around him.

"It's very, very quiet."

And as he sits in that silence, he concentrates on his job - steering his crew.

"I really have to zone in just to my eight guys," he says. "What can I do at this moment to help them? What can I do at this moment to calm them down? What can I do at this moment to help them focus on what's coming up?"

He was able to help them focus in Beijing, when Brian and the rest of the Men's Eight Rowing team raced to first place. London will be his third Games.

It took quite the journey for Brian to get this far.

At the age of seven, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

"Understanding the difference between life and death and what we're going through, what I was going through, became very, very clear," Brian says.

One of his most vivid memories from that time in his life is of his first hospital visit.

"I was lying on an operating table and I had to have a lumbar puncture and bone marrow at the same time, back to back.

"I remember looking up, seeing these bright lights above me, smiling and happy, and then within minutes of that, obviously, in the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life."

Two weeks later, he says his mom told him he would have to go back to the hospital for another procedure.

"I remember crying in the bed, and my mom [was] very upset. [She said], 'Brian, you have to do this. I would love to change spots with you, but I can't. You need to do this to live.' And I remember saying, 'Okay, I'll do it.' "

Within a couple of years, Brian says he was going to the hospital on his own.

"It became a challenge for me that I was not going to let it stop me. I was not going to let beat me. I was going to go after it," he says.

Brian has been able to find the irony in his situation. Five years of chemotherapy stunted his growth.

"I'm the perfect size to be a coxswain."

He has settled for the mindset that the cancer helped him become an Olympic champion.

"I wouldn't want to change anything," he says. "Because going through all those experiences as a kid has developed me into the person I am."

BRIAN'S COMPETITION DATES - Men's Eight Rowing

Heats - July 28th
Repechages - July 30th
Final - Aug 1st