After booking a place at next year’s Rio Olympics, MCC member Kim Crow won back her women's single sculls world title at the world rowing championships in France in September.

The Victorian reclaimed the title she won two years ago in South Korea, defeating a strong field that included 2012 Olympic champion, Mirka Knapkova, of the Czech Republic.

Rio will be Crow’s third Olympic Games. She finished fourth in the double sculls B-Final with Sarah Cook in Beijing in 2008, before stamping herself on the world stage with silver in the double sculls (with Brooke Pratley) and bronze in the single sculls at London in 2012.

Crow is a leading hope for Olympic gold in Rio and will be the first Australian woman to head to an Olympics as a favourite in that event.

“I would love to win Olympic gold - it would be incredibly special,” Crow told the Daily Telegraph in September.

“I will do everything I can to really test my limits. An Olympic gold would be really special, but I don’t think it would make my journey any less rewarding if that wasn’t the outcome.”

There is no denying the 30-year-old’s talents and pedigree. The daughter of former VFL forward/ruckman Max Crow and prominent sports administrator Sue Crow, Kim won Australian junior titles as a 400 metre hurdler, finishing second behind Jana Pittman at the 2004 senior national titles before injury haltered her promising career and sent her on a path to rowing.

Out of the boat, Kim is a practising lawyer and chair of the Australian Olympic Committee’s Athletes’ Commission. One wonders how she fits it all in.