THE SPORT OF ROWING Nunn: “In Mexico we won our heat, and Bill passed out cold. They took him into the medical tent and put on an oxygen mask but forgot to turn the oxygen on. Luckily, he was awake enough that he could knock it off his face or he could have died. Our guys then rescued him out of the tent, and he went straight to bed. “Because we had won, we didn’t have to do the repêchage. That meant we had the rest day and the repêchage day off, so Bill was pretty much in bed for three days.”3937 Semi-Finals The first semi-final was won by the GDR crew over the Bulgarians and Soviets, with Bürgin and Studach failing by open water to advance to the grand final. Nunn and Maher were in the second semi-final. Nunn: “Bill comes out of bed, and we race the semi-finals, and we’re right next to the Czech team who were 1967 Bronze Medalists from Vichy. They were beautiful rowers. You just watched them and said, ‘Wow!’ “After watching them in Vichy, we used to say, ‘We want to row like those guys.’ They were perfect, absolutely flawless technique. We were in the lane next to them, and they took off at the start. I’d say within forty strokes or so we couldn’t even tell that anybody was in the lane next to us. No more puddles. Nothing! Like nobody had ever been there. We thought, ‘Screw it. All we have to do is finish third to advance. We’re not going to worry about those guys.’ “So we’re rowing along in like second place, and we get to the 1,200 meter mark. There are the Czechs, and the bow man is out cold in the boat, so we ended up winning the semi-final, but Bill passed out again, so 3937 Nunn, personal conversation, 2008 he went back to bed for another two days or whatever.”3938 The Final Nunn: “Since the beginning, we had been watching the other races, and they had medical boats following and pulling guys out of the water when they would pass out and fall in. There was this Russian Pair coming down about ten strokes from the end, and wham, the bow man goes right into the water, and they came over and pulled him out. They were dropping like flies. In that regatta, there was probably like thirty guys who passed out either on the water or on the dock. It was really unbelievable. “So we didn’t know what the hell to do because Bill had this cough and bronchitis, and he’d been passing out. So we decided to cool it off the line in the final, and then we’d see where we were. “Anyway, we get to the 500 meter mark, and we look around and everyone is dead even! They all had done the same thing! If we had known, we probably would have gone for it, but Bill had been so sick . . . “Then the Dutch, they had a better plan: ‘We’re going to cool it, but at the 500, we’re going to take a racing start and then go.’ “So that’s what they did, and everybody else followed them, so we ended up like fifth or sixth at the 1,000. Then we started picking it up, and we passed West Germany and then GDR. By the 1,500 we moved up to fourth, and then we sprinted, and we went by the Bulgarians. The Russians were sprinting and got by the Dutch. We were coming up, too, but we were a little too late.”3939 Official Report, Mexico 1968: “The Soviets, who managed only third in the semi-finals, made up more than four seconds 3938 Nunn, personal conversation, 2008 3939 Nunn, personal conversation, 2008 1086
