INTERNATIONAL ROWING TURNS PROFESSIONAL seat next spring,’ and he was, too. When we resumed in early fall, Dan began to systematically beat all of us, and there was no doubt that he would be in the boat when trials time came around. “Our coach, Stan Pocock, knew this well ahead of us. Dan was a force that moved us to higher energy and intense levels of training, and his leadership made him the captain of our team.”3535 The 1960 Coxless-Four By the 1960 Olympic Trials, Lake Washington’s dominance was complete. They won all the sweep small-boat Olympic Trials, both pairs3536 and both fours, a feat never equaled, before or since, by a single club. The LWRC Coxless-Four, their 1960 priority boat, was an all-star squad: As expected, in the stroke seat sat 6’4” 193cm 194lb. 88kg John Sayre, 24, UW Varsity stroke at Henley and in Moscow in 19583537 and 1959 Pan Am Champion in the coxless-fours. In the 3-seat was 6’6” 197cm 194lb. 88kg Rusty Wailes, 24, who had rowed 7 in the 1956 Yale Olympic Gold Medal Eight3538 and 1959 Pan Am Champion in the coxless-fours. In the 2-seat was 6’4” 193cm 190lb. 86kg Ted Nash, 27, from Boston University, University of Washington and the U.S. Army and 1959 Pan Am Champion in the coxless-fours. In bow sat the only addition to the 1959 LWRC Pan Am Champion Four, 6’4” 193cm 190lb. 86kg Dan Ayrault, 25, 3535 Nash, op. cit. 3536 After 1960, the Findlay coxed-pairs would officially represent Stanford University Crew Association while they continued their relationship to LWRC and Stan Pocock. 3537 See Chapter 89. 3538 See Chapter 69. former Stanford team captain, LWRC co- founder and captain, and a member of the 1956 U.S. Olympic Gold Medal Coxed- Pair.3539 “All four were mature athletes with years of rowing experience, probably the only non-European crew which on paper approached the statistics of the continental oarsmen.”3540 Technique With two Olympic Gold Medalists and the Moscow-winning UW stroke on board, all from mainstream Conibear Classical Technique programs, technique was an easy matter of consensus: concurrent body mechanics, excellent suspension from catch to a subtle ferryman’s finish, Schubschlag parabolic force application. The intensity of the squeeze to the release was obvious in their body language. Nash, only a Pan Am Champion and the last man to make this august boat, was the least polished of the four. His initial leg drive was just slightly more aggressive than that of his LWRC teammates, and therefore his parabolic force curve was very slightly biased toward the front end. 1960 Olympic Trials Phil Durbrow, destined to be a part of the Lake Washington effort four years later in 1964: “I first encountered LWRC when I was the 19-year-old stroke of a straight-four from Menlo College that unexpectedly had made it to the final of the 1960 Olympic Trials. I was sitting on a bench in the locker room when Ted Nash walked out of the shower with all his muscles gleaming. He 3539 See Chapter 82. 3540 Craig Swayze, A Critique of the Rowing Regatta at the XVII Olympiad, NAAO Official Rowing Guide, 1961, p. 31 971
