THE SPORT OF ROWING France Cuba Mexico 7:05.48 7:13.43 7:36.29 “For the repêchages, the Olympic Rowing officials decided to have rubber boats follow the races, and it was a good thing. Several crews had to stop rowing as the altitude took a number of casualties. A sculler, I think from Poland, flipped with 250 to go when he passed out. Watching this happen gave us some pretty high anxiety as we prepared for our next races. “With Bill sick, we were feeling pretty low, but Ted arrived from Philadelphia to give us a needed boost. The Semi-Finals “In our semi-final, we had Netherlands, West Germany, Italy, Argentina and New Zealand. Again, the top three crews would advance to go to the final. “West Germany false started, and then the Netherlands crew did as well. These are very distracting and draining. The worst part of false starts is that you can’t be sure that the race will be called back, so you need to wait until you see the starter signal that the start was bad. Sometimes this was twenty or thirty strokes at the highest of the racing rates. “On the third start, we got off strong and were with the lead boats after 250. West Germany had a slight lead with Italy second, and we were tied with New Zealand for third. “At the 500 meter mark, West Germany was beginning to fade, but the other three crews were within a second. The Netherlands crew was sixth. “At 750 meters, New Zealand took a mid-race sprint, going for thirty strokes at 40 strokes per minute while the remainder of the boats maintained 36 to 38. This put them a full length over the rest of the boats. We got ahead of Italy and finished the race behind only New Zealand. The times were: Semi-Final 1: New Zealand USA Italy Argentina West Germany Netherlands Semi-Final 2: GDR Soviet Union Switzerland Romania France Cuba 6:48.65 6:54.22 6:58.24 7:02.25 7:06.45 7:08.68 6:46.23. 6:48.16 6:48.54 6:52.67 7:14.05 7:26.62 “The top three in each semi made the final. “There was one rest day between the semi-finals and the final, and the night of the semis I got my dose of Montezuma and spent a long fifteen minutes in the toilet. I must have used some of the native water for my toothbrush or something. Luckily, it was brief, and I felt fine afterwards. “The night before the final was one that I will never forget. Ted came into the village to give us a pep talk. We were all pretty keyed up. In fact, we were already beyond normal conversation, long before having passed through yelling and cursing each other. “Ted started with a race plan. We would go off at 46 strokes per minute for twenty strokes, drop to 42 for twenty and then row at 38 for the remainder of the body of the race, raising the stroke at the end. We would try to match the New Zealand crew if they took their high-30 to moderate any gains. All in all, it was pretty conservative. “Unfortunately, Ted didn’t stop there. He told us to beat the East Germans and Russians because they were communists. For me, this was contrary to what I had learned while I was there. The Russians were rowers, as were the East Germans. 1230
