THE SPORT OF ROWING FISA 1991 Video Canada Women’s Coxless-Pair 1991 World Champion, Vienna Neue Donau Bow Marnie McBean, Stroke Kathleen Heddle 0°, +35° to -30°, 0-9, 0-9, 0-10 Classical Technique Schubschlag ’91 and ‘92, they were really leaned out because they actually tried to do the volume of training needed to win, and they did it without juice.”6758 Spracklen: “Between 1990 and 1991, the Berlin Wall had fallen, and with it came the collapse of all the communist sport programmes. The Eastern Bloc had placed emphasis on women’s rowing, where the administration of drugs had a greater effect on performance. This had resulted in communist domination of women’s rowing from 1976, when they were added to the Olympics, until the collapse of the Wall in 1991. “Support for athletes in the West had favored men. However, Canada supported men and women equally and were fortunate to have a few good athletes, one of whom was Marnie McBean. Marnie was the driving force through that period, clearly demonstrated by a drop in the women’s team performance after her retirement.”6759 Small-Boat Training Year after year, Al Morrow would turn out the most elegant, swinging boats at each 6758 Riley, personal conversation, 2009 6759 Spracklen, op. cit. world regatta. All his athletes trained in small boats, with the priority boat being the pair. In both 1991 and 1992, the pair and coxless-four both won their championship races and then jumped into the eight and won that as well. The top performers in selection since 1990 had been Marnie McBean and Kathleen Heddle, who won the 1991 World Gold Medal in the pairs and then rowed 5 and 6 in the Gold Medal Eight. Heddle: “We were good in the eight, but we all trained in the pair. The first row of every day was basically four pairs or five pairs racing each other, and I think that this was great for us. And later when we were sculling [prior to the 1996 Olympics], the four of us that made up the quad were in singles, and we would race against each other day in, day out. “Mike’s men’s program was doing the same, and this was fantastic for race preparation.”6760 McBean and Heddle Al Morrow had McBean and Heddle rowing concurrent Classical Technique 6760 Heddle, personal conversation, 2010 1872
