THE SPORT OF ROWING “We had about eight strokes in that boat.”5061 Analysis Harry Parker had been speaking to Karl Adam in the days before the race: “He didn’t like it when I told him, ‘You know, your technique is very, very good, but in the headwind you’re in trouble.’ “And, sure enough, on FISA 1964 Film Robert Zimonyi in Tokyo more strokes go by . . . and then you finally get to twenty-two. “Little bastard was lying away, trying to keep us alive and going . . . ”5058 Rosenberg: “I told the crew that while they had taken only second in the opening heat, they would win the final with that same performance. It was controlled at 500 meters to the finish. “I told Stowe there would be no sprint and to hold at 37-38. He did, and we still moved away with Ratzeburg scrambling at 44. They ended up so spent they had to sit in their boat for a full fifteen minutes before they could paddle to the dock.”5059 Clark: “I didn’t know, and am not sure I believe that Al told Stowe not to sprint in the last 500 of the final in Tokyo. I wish he had told me!”5060 Budd: “I can’t believe this either. I also can’t believe that we wouldn’t have sprinted if it was a close race. In that boat, the impetus to sprint, if sprinting was called for, would have come from elsewhere in the boat even if the stroke hadn’t started the sprint. 5058 Budd, qtd. in A Fine Balance 5059 Rosenberg, op. cit. 5060 Clark, op. cit. that day there was a big headwind in Tokyo.”5062 Norm Sonju: “Vesper was at his peak physically and mentally. On the other hand, the Ratzeburg crew on its visit to the United States two years ago5063 was defeated in a preliminary heat by Cornell into a headwind.”5064 Ted Nash: “Vesper’s Eight ‘out- Germaned’ the Germans in that they were able to gain power and endurance from the interval work and were flexible enough to lengthen into the lower stroke for the strong headwinds. No one had experience racing in the dark, but all the way down the course, coxswain Zimonyi could be heard yelling for length, and lengthen they did for a splendid five-second victory.”5065 Georg Meyers: “It was a two-boat race all the way. The Germans clung to a micrometric lead in the first half of the 2,000 meter race. Then the Yanks, dedicated to redeeming the fifth-place humiliation for the Navy Eight four years 5061 Budd, personal correspondence, 2010 5062 Parker, personal conversation, 2004 5063 See Chapter 98. 5064 Sonju, op. cit. 5065 Ted Nash, The Olympics, Blades, Rigging, Boats and Measurements, Comments on ‘The Greatest Games,’ NAAO Official Rowing Guide, 1965, p. 49 1400