THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT “I was really only the manager, but I had a lot of input into what he was saying and what he was doing. Some of it he did reluctantly, and some of it he took on board. “Prior to us leaving New Zealand for Switzerland, I had the whole schedule from the first day we started rowing, right through to coming back on the plane, and of course we called it an Entebbe Raid, because we were really only there a month because we didn’t have the money, so in ‘82 I had all these things laid out. One of the things I had in there was a big party a fortnight out from the heats. ‘If you’re going to get drunk, that’s the only chance you’ll have to do it.’ “I went and found this place right up in the bloody hills somewhere above the Ägerisee,6580 away from everybody so the guys could make as much noise as they liked. If they got drunk, I’d drive them back, and of course it was something for the people to look forward to as well. “‘Time out just for us! Don’t have to do nothin’ for Dud, nothin’ for Harry.’ “So up we go. A few of them got drunk. Most of them didn’t, but they all came back. Two of the boys got back about 5 o’clock in the morning, and those two actually needed to do this. One wanted to fight all the time, but he also was the best racer that we had. “Harry, for some reason or other, got quite livid about this. Seven o’clock comes, and everybody’s out of bed. The arrangement had been, ‘You can go and get pissed, boy, but you had better be there at 7 o’clock the next morning.’ Sure enough, everybody was . . . in various states of disrepair, but they were there. Harry takes them out on the water and gives them a hard workout and also gives them a bit of a dressing down. He thought they shouldn’t be doing this and should be doing that. “I didn’t know anything about this because I was back recovering m’self. The guys come back after the row and say to me, 6580 a glacial lake 25k northeast of Luzern. ‘Ol’ bloody Harry has given us a chew out this morning. We thought this was all part of the plan.’ “‘Of course it was,’ I said. ‘It’s what it’s all about!’ “‘Well, Harry’s chewed our ears, and he’s told us we’re a bloody disgrace to the bloody New Zealand blazer and all sorts of stuff.’ “And I thought bug this, so I grabbed Harry, dragged him into the dining room, sat him down and said, ‘We had an arrangement before we left New Zealand that this was what we were going to do. You cannot change the bloody rules half-way through, not without giving people advance notice, so the best thing you can do, Harry Mahon, is to get off your ass, get across to those two guys particularly but the whole eight generally, and apologise!’ “And he did. Harry was man enough to say, ‘I did make a mistake. We did say we were going to do this. I’m sorry.’ “They won the race right there and then, a fortnight before the man even said go.”6581 The 1982 World Championship Cross: “In 1982 and 1983, I watched from the sidelines as his eights took the World title by storm. It wasn’t the fact that they won. It was the way they did it, moving with deceptive ease.”6582 Mahon: “The heat draw was good, facing 1981 World Champion Russia, Czechoslovakia (who had won at Grünau) and France. The crew had a real confidence-boosting row – being able to ‘sit’ with the pace, move decisively to take a length lead, and be able to ‘cruise for the last part – but still record a similar time to the other heat winner, East Germany. A controlled, exacting display of rowing which demolished the previous champions, 6581 Storey, personal conversation, 2010 6582 Cross, p. 47 1823
