INTERNATIONAL ROWING TURNS PROFESSIONAL the remaining place in the final. John made it by .45 seconds. In the final after another two-day interval, Meißner went out the fastest and maintained a half length over Wienese through the 1,000. The third 500 was all Wienese,3943 and he crossed the 1,500 nearly half a length to the good. The rest of the field was more than three lengths adrift. After losing two lengths to the leader in the first 500, Van Blom languished in fifth for the body of the race. But his last 500 was second only to that of Wienese, and when Achim Hill, the Olympic Silver Medalist in 1960 and ‘64,3944 virtually collapsed in the last 500, John inherited fourth, but was still open water out of the medals. 1 NED 2 FRG 3 ARG 4 USA 5 GDR 6 GBR 7:47.80 7:52.00 7:57.19 8:00.51 8:06.09 8:13.76 Van Blom: “I got fourth in Mexico City, and I felt like I raced as well as I was able to at the time. The altitude affected people differently. I thought it affected me fairly strongly. It’s just like climbing Everest. Some people adapt to the altitude, and some never do.3945 “Because of the altitude, I felt I had to row the body of the race very conservatively so that I didn’t blow out before the finish. In the film you use [previous page], I still had most of 500 meters to go. I think I was being as cautious as possible until I started my sprint – a tactic that worked well for me in the semi when I passed the Russian to qualify for the final. “And it worked again in the final insofar as it got me from fifth place to fourth by 3943 See Chapter 80. 3944 See Chapter 91. 3945 John Van Blom, personal conversation, 2008 sprinting past Achim Hill. Hill pretty much gave up the minute I got past him. What looks like a wimpy stroke toward the release in the footage was all I could do at 7,000 feet and still get to the finish.”3946 “The winner, Jan Wienese,3947 talked about how he really didn’t feel any effect from the altitude. He raced that way. He was way out. He was a lightweight sculler that did respectably at sea level, third in ‘65, second in ‘66, third in ‘67 . . . but definitely not completely dominant like he was in Mexico.”3948 Van Blom and McKibbon McKibbon: “John was the single sculler in Mexico City, and I was the spare. When Nunn and Maher had their final and came in third, we were sitting together at the finish line. I turned to John and said, ‘We could have won that race. We could have been Olympic Champions if we had been the double instead of them.’ “John was unmoved. He looked at me and said, ‘I’m going to win in the single next year.’”3949 Van Blom: “When I was in high school, I overheard my rowing coaches talking about what a team sport rowing is and how you don’t get a lot of recognition in rowing when you’re in a team boat . . . unless you’re a single sculler. “I thought, ‘Oh, I want to be a single sculler.’ “In Mexico I had done well in a strong field. After Wienese, Jochen Meißner was second. He was another lightweight, and he had won the European Championships in 1965 with Wienese third. Alberto Demiddi was third in Mexico, and he went on to win 3946 John Van Blom, personal correspondence, 2010 3947 See Chapter 80. 3948 John Van Blom, personal conversation, 2008 3949 McKibbon, personal conversation 2008 1089
