THE SPORT OF ROWING Storey: “I think the Eight weren’t quite as receptive to the idea that you had to do this big push across the middle. “They had a plan. They knew ours had worked, but they didn’t have our confidence because they hadn’t practiced it. We had at least gotten to practice it twice.”5630 The third 500 at altitude must have seemed endless with the Ratzeburgers slowly reeling them in. The Germans took the lead by .46 seconds at the 1,500,5631 and the handwriting was surely on the wall for New Zealand. Veldman: “We still led at the 1,500 . . . and then the wheels fell off . . . literally. I can’t recall much of the last 500. All I know is that my legs were a sort of mottled colour. I think it was lack of oxygen.”5632 Storey: “I think they tried to do something in the middle of the race to break away but never got the lead that they expected. “You’ve got to sell the farm! “Then when other people started coming at them, there was an element of panic that came in. They raised it all right. They got the rating up . . . but the boat didn’t go faster . . . and we all know the end result of that game.”5633 Veldman: “It had worked perfectly for the Four, but on this day it didn’t work for us. I think if we’d been more relaxed about the whole thing, but we were trying so damned hard that we spent it all before we got to the finish.”5634 By the last 500, Australia and the Soviets, both of whom had held back early on, were on the move. By the finish line, the leading West Germans barely withstood their advance, and New Zealand had fallen out of the medals by more than two seconds. 5630 Storey, op. cit. 5631 See photo, Chapter 102. 5632 Veldman, op. cit. 5633 Storey, op. cit. 5634 Veldman, op. cit. 1 GER 2 AUS 3 URS 4 NZL 5 CZE 6 USA 6:07.00 6:07.98 6:08.11 6:10.43 6:12.17 6:14.31 Palenski & Maddaford: “They came in a shattered fourth, some of them almost unconscious, such was the depth of their unavailing effort. Three of them were stretchered ashore. All of them were helped away by teammates.”5635 Veldman: “To this day I look back, and we can use the excuse of saying that the altitude hit us, but I notice that all those guys who won medals had no trouble whatsoever. They just leapt out of the boat, and we who were the vanquished sort of crawled away. “That’s all you can do. We had a couple of the boys on the crew that it took them quite a while to recover. I mean I couldn’t walk. Al Dryden, who was our 6-man, he had to have intravenous shots, and he was pretty well out of it for the next couple of days, but I think that is very much a condition of those who get beaten. “I noticed the boys in the Four were prancing around as if they’d only been for a training row, but they had a fantastic win, and full congratulations to them . . . while we went out the back door. [laughs heartily]”5636 Mark Brownlee, holdover from the 1964 Eight and 4-seat in 1968: “I have my own thoughts on that race. I will need to think hard on how I put it. “What did Rusty say? Well, to be honest, not that much that day. Nobody expected what happened to us, and it was hard to take because of what Rusty had put us through in training one day out on a back river. “We had to row against the Four over 1,000m in a sprint race. The Four went off 5635 Palenski & Maddaford, p. 170 5636 Veldman, op. cit. 1550
