THE LONG ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN ROWING strong point of the stroke when we crossed the line.”5132 Recently discovered film taken by Thomi Keller and never developed shows that they had a terrific race toward the end. With eleven meters to go and the Americans on the surging portion of their stroke, they led by a whisker, but by ten meters to go and GDR now surging, the lead had exchanged hands, only to switch back as both boats cycled through their pullthrough/recovery sequences. Ten meters or one stroke later and with the Germans again on the surge, they crossed the line the winners. At the high altitude of Xochimilco, it was an extraordinary effort on the part of both crews. The Danes captured Bronze, more than two lengths back, while the Austrians and Swiss could only limp over the line and the Dutch were forced to abandon. John Van Blom, the 1968 U.S. Single Sculler: “Hough and Johnson had won the Europeans in 1967 by a huge amount of open water. In Mexico City, I think they went too hard too early for the altitude. The East Germans knew how to train for altitude, but there wasn’t anybody in the United States who knew how to do it right. “Larry Hough had gone to prep school with one of the Coors kids, so they and I went and stayed at a little Coors family fishing cabin on Williams Fork Reservoir5133 after my Trials but before theirs. Later we also trained in Gunnison, Colorado with the rest of the American team, so I think we were at altitude too long. You plateau off after a couple of weeks, and then you’re losing conditioning, because you can’t work as hard. “Looking back on it, the whole U.S. Team didn’t train properly for altitude. We kept doing lots of sprint work like you do at 5132 Hough, op. cit. 5133 Near Parshall, Colorado. sea level, and it was just agonizing. Now when people train at altitude, they do a lot of steady state.”5134 Hough: “One humorous memory. I got pulled in for the drug test, and so did the Austrian kid I knew pretty well. We were sitting in the tent together, and he couldn’t pee. Somebody brought us a six-pack of beer, so we sat around drinking beer, and I didn’t have any trouble performing after that. Early days of drug testing.”5135 Revolutionary Boundary The pairs race on Xochimilco represented a crossing of a revolutionary boundary5136 in world rowing: the first Olympic Gold Medal for the German Democratic Republic. As we shall soon see, GDR in 1968 was on the threshold of a new era in rowing and a new era in sport. Larry Hough and Tony Johnson were the last champion American crew to row some version of the Ratzeburg Style. In 1969, they rebounded from their heartbreaking loss in Mexico City to win their second European Championship on the Wörthersee in Klagenfurt, Austria. Hough: “The following year, the Mexico City Gold Medal [Einheit Dresden] Straight-Four, the premier East German boat of that era which would go undefeated from 1966 to 1972, one of the guys in that crew got injured, so two of them [Stroke Frank Forberger 6’3” 190cm 192lb. 87kg, Bow Dieter Grahn 6’2” 189cm 190lb. 86kg] raced us in the straight-pairs in 1969. “In the Klagenfurt race, which was our last race together, we were five seconds ahead at the 1,000 meter mark, and beat them by a half length without any sprint. I 5134 John Van Blom, personal conversation, 2008 5135 Hough, op. cit. 5136 See Introduction. 1421