AMERICAN ROWING COMES OF AGE described by the blade. They kept their arms straight until their bodies were past the perpendicular, 50° with the boat’s gunwale.1165 Then they dropped their hands against their ribs and commenced another stroke.”1166 By contrast, the U.S. men were affirmatively Schubschlag. American rowing historian Samuel Crowther: “The Harvard oarsmen did not lay particular stress on the catch, but pulled the whole stroke through and finished hard, swinging little.”1167 Dodd: “[Harvard’s] aim was to pull every part of the stroke equally hard [Schubschlag]. To effect this, they reached farther over their toes than their antagonists, and at the end of the stroke thrust their hands very quickly away from their bodies. They swung their bodies back past the perpendicular less far than Oxford, using their arms more in finishing the stroke [ferryman’s finish], and the rebound from their bodies was swifter.”1168 Remembering that the race took place in the last years before sliding seats were introduced, the technique of the two crews can be estimated as follows: Oxford: +40° to -40°, 0-10, 8-10 Harvard: +50° to -25°, 0-9, 0-10 “To the English critics, Harvard with their ‘flurried rush forward, and short, scratchy arm-work,’ afforded a striking contrast to the slower rating, ‘faultless form and swing’ of Oxford.”1169 Even the New York Tribune’s London correspondent, George Smalley, could find nothing good to say about the American crew. “They row short, they dig, they fail to 1165 -40˚ layback 1166 Dodd, op.cit., p. 187 1167 Crowther, p. 36 1168 Dodd, op.cit., pp. 186-7 1169 Mendenhall, Harvard-Yale, p. 73 catch the beginning, and they fail to swing back well together.”1170 Of course, as a member of the 1852 Yale crew that had been defeated by Harvard that year, Smalley could hardly be expected to have been complimentary. Training William Blaikie, who had visited Oxford in 1866 as Harvard captain, was acting as manager of the 1869 team. He “was amazed that Oxford’s preparation for ‘the most important race the world ever saw’ was doing no more than twenty-five minutes of hard work each day. “The English university crew would paddle a mile in the morning; in the afternoon, they would row over the course ‘on time,’ but rather than paddling back, they would put the boat in charge of watermen and go home on a little steamer owned by one of the members.”1171 By contrast, the Harvard men “would row about three miles in the morning, then in the evening would go over the four-mile course at a racing pace, and on their return trip would row easily at first, gradually swinging into a stroke that ‘gave the horsemen on the tow-path a run for their money.’”1172 Historian William Durick believes the difference was cultural. “The English elite class, for the most part a closed society, claimed to put more emphasis on the enjoyment of the contest rather than victory. Most English gentlemen had never experienced the fierce struggle for survival and the competition to get to the top and stay there that was a trademark of the more egalitarian American society. English gentlemen enjoyed a reserved spot in British society; the eldest sons were not expected to 1170 Qtd. by Durick, p. 57 1171 Durick, p. 56 1172 Ibid, p. 55 307
