THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT “The following year I went into the 7- seat of the eight, and I stayed there right until ‘72. “I remember after ‘68, my future wife sort of said, ‘When are we going to get married?’ I knew the New Zealand Rowing Championships were the first week in March in ‘69, so I said, ‘I’m very happy to get married in the second week in March,’ but everything hit the raw when I said, ‘AND . . . I am going to aim for ‘72!’ “She was a dental nurse, and she was working, too, and I said, ‘We’re going to save like crazy for ‘72. If I get selection, we’re going to go, both of us, and if I don’t . . . we’ll use that money to buy a section and build a house. I can remember that so clearly. “Meanwhile, we were still living in a little cottage, and we had a child. When I made it in ‘72, the grandparents looked after the child, and my wife came with me, and that was great that she was there to see it all happen.”5665 Palenski & Maddaford, describing the 1972 Olympic eights final: “True to their tactics, the New Zealanders surged away from the start, rating 45 for the first 500 metres. The three-quarter-length lead on East Germany and a length on West Germany seemed to come immediately. Another 200 metres, and the straining New Zealanders had a clear length on the rest of the field.”5666 Coxswain Simon Dickie: “Usually we reach our maximum rating at 100 metres. This time we hit it at 250. You could sense the boys thinking, ‘We won’t be too quick. We’ll just wind it out.’ “We had a good half length at 500 metres, and we’d done it efficiently and fairly easily.”5667 5665 Veldman, op. cit. 5666 Palenski & Maddaford, p. 189 5667 Qtd. by Conway, p. 204 West End RC Historian David Conway: “Robertson had ordered that when the eight came off the sprint at 600 metres, they should concentrate on rhythm rather than drop their rating. Such was the magnificent control of the so-called ‘Black Barons’ that they covered 750 metres before the rate started to fall. A three-quarter length lead over East Germany at 500 metres was increased to a length at 800.”5668 Dickie: “The rating dropped suddenly to 39 and a bit. I called it out at 38, and it got back to 39½ and stayed there. “We started our middle sprint at 850. Fifty strokes took us past 1,250. It had been obvious the other crews were doing their racing over the second 1,000 metres, and I was waiting for the challenge. It never came. “It seemed that we must have done a hell of a lot of work by 1,500 metres to get as far ahead as we were. I remembered how the Coxless-Four was mown down in the previous race by East Germany and let the Eight rest altogether for 350 metres. “So on we went again when we thought there were just 300 metres left. I think by then we all thought, ‘By God, they can’t take a length out of us now!’”5669 Palenski & Maddaford: “They were still more than a length clear when the agony ended and the ecstasy began. “Rusty Robertson, the man who had made it all happen, stood waiting for his crew to return, quietly acknowledging the congratulations of those around him.”5670 25th Reunion Veldman: “We had a reunion in 1997, twenty-five years later. We talked about it, and we thought we should have a reunion tour, so to speak. A couple of the lads, Dick 5668 Conway, pp. 204-5 5669 Qtd. by Conway, p. 205 5670 Palenski & Maddaford, p. 189 1559
