THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT came back full of good intentions to change things, but two or three months later everything died down and they carried on as before. “‘There was basically a stagnation without anyone able to give it some impetus, some structure.’ “It was this that Janoušek put right, gathering together the first national squad and introducing training methods that were already commonplace on the continent. These included a scientific approach to weight training and covering distances on the water that would previously have been deemed ungentlemanly. “Perhaps most importantly, he also provided inspired leadership. Among other things, his guidance ended the sport’s class divide, depicted by Baillieu as the public school/Oxbridge and East End factions. “‘It was quite an incendiary combination at times,’ he says – but, harnessed by Janoušek, it would gel to form a magnificent eight at the 1976 Olympics. “‘Bob Janoušek revolutionised our whole attitude to racing and training,’ says David Tanner, Britain’s performance director since 1996. ‘He came from the Eastern Bloc and brought what I would call “training method.” He taught us how people trained over there. The other thing he brought was his charisma.’”5370 Technique Janoušek also taught the British a new approach to technique. What he came up with was a combination of British, American and West German traits, with a few unique twists of his own. By the 1970s, it had inspired a book, Modern Rowing by Paul Wilson, and attracted the attention of rowing historian and theorist Peter Klavora. Wilson called Janoušek’s 5370 Henderson, op. cit. approach International Modern Style, or IMS, but the term never caught on.5371 British coach Mike Spracklen:5372 “Bob came to Britain from Janoušek Czechoslovakia in 1969 to help British rowing. He brought with him Karl Adam’s methods, which he had been taught at the Ratzeburger Ruderakademie. Janoušek set up the first Coaching Award Scheme in UK based on the same Karl Adam principles.”5373 In 1980, Oxford University coach Daniel Topolski paid homage to “Bob Janoušek, who is, among other things, the Cambridge coach, and who in 1968 brought from Czechoslovakia ideas that revolutionized British rowing, taking us from twenty-second to third in world rankings.”5374 Stroke Rate He began with the high ratings of Moscow and Ratzeburg, and for the same rationale. Janoušek: “From the hydro-dynamic standpoint, it is best to keep the hull at nearly constant speed, and a recovery motion which gives this is desirable.”5375 Recovery However, in contrast to the Moscow/Ratzeburg accelerated recovery, its Janoušek counterpart was steady. “There is no accentuated speed-up or slow-down in the motion: it is done in the most obviously 5371 This same term is now used by Thor Nilsen for what I call Modern Orthodox Technique. See Chapter 108. 5372 See Chapter 130. 5373 Spracklen, op. cit. 5374 Qtd. by Anthony Bailey, Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, April 7, 1980, p. 32 5375 Wilson, p. 27 1483
