THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT implanted itself in the minds of the other oarsmen in the group.’”6085 competed in After Henley, Baillieu and Hart the 1973 European Championships and placed third behind GDR and a Soviet double with Korshikov, this time teamed with Aleksandr Tymoshinin 6’4” 192cm 203lb. 92kg in a reunion of the 1972 Olympic Champion combination. Baillieu: “In ‘74, we had a collision which severed a nerve in my arm, and so in ‘74 and ‘75 I was sculling on only two fingers of my left hand. That was a bit challenging, but we managed to just win another Bronze Medal in 1974 where the conditions were very flat, and then in 1975 the same result by a fraction of a second, but we were a good ten seconds off the Gold Medal. “The good news is that the nerve repaired itself, and on New Year’s Day ‘76 the movement which had gone returned. You’ll see even now [2008] that my hands are fundamentally different because I don’t have full nerve feeling in my left hand. “But after ‘75 we recognized that we’d reached the limit doing what we were doing. We simply had to change. We also knew the training levels that the Hansens6086 were doing and the East Germans6087 were doing. They were full-time athletes. We were working athletes, and we didn’t feel comfortable going into the 1976 Olympic Games holding onto Bronze Medals by fractions of seconds . . . so we formed a plan, and the plan was to resource us so we could train full time, and to find a coach who could take us to the next level. 6085 John Henderson, Shock and Oar, The Observer, August 26, 2007 6086 Alf and Frank Hansen of Norway. See Chapter 121. 6087 See Chapter 119. 6088 Baillieu, op. cit. 6089 Spracklen, op. cit. “I’d been watching Mike Spracklen, admiring him and the methods he used. I talked to him in 1975 when he was coaching the lightweight eight that won a Bronze Medal in Nottingham, and he agreed to give us a little time.”6088 Spracklen: “My coaching career began with lightweights at the beginning of the 1974/5 winter. “Lightweight rowing had been nonexistent in Britain but had been an exhibition event in 1973 and formally brought into the World Championships in 1974, which British Rowing agreed to support in 1975. With no one in Britain interested in lightweights, however, I was asked to take on the role with the title Lightweight Coordinator, albeit as an amateur [i.e. unpaid]. I took on the coach- ing of the eight myself, boated from Thames Tradesmen Rowing Club, which was in those days at Chiswick Bridge. The [heavyweight] sculling squad were also training on the Tideway and asked to train with us at week ends. They were unhappy with their coach, and I ended up taking them to the World Championships, where they reached the final for the first time since quad sculling had been part of the British team programme. “At this time I became formal sculling coach for the National Team in 1975, and it was at this point that Chris Baillieu who, with Mike Hart had won three Bronze Medals in a double, showed interest in what I had to offer. The ARA had already appointed me as the formal lecturer on sculling technique in the Coaching Award Scheme, but it was the performance of the quad that persuaded Chris Baillieu to ask for my help with technique.”6089 Donald Legget: “Having coached Baillieu and Hart from April 1973 through to Feb 1976, I got a letter one morning from 1703
