THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT spectators in Athens, but they did it by just eight hundredths of a second.6926 “For the first three years of the Olympiad, Cracknell and Pinsent had raced in the pair, but they failed in 2003, finishing a disconsolate fourth at the Worlds, and Jürgen was forced to rethink his strategy which had a major impact on the performances of the other men’s boats. No other British men’s boat made the final in Athens.”6927 After Athens, Cracknell and Pinsent both retired, but the British under Grobler captured Gold in the coxless-fours event in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2011. Jürgen the Coach “That may have been for other reasons, but that never happened with Jürgen. We always performed. Our best results were at the big event at the end of the season. With Mike, it was a little bit more hit and miss. “But that’s the science behind Jürgen. He brought with him the East German system.”6928 Chris Baillieu: “Steve Redgrave said to me on one occasion when we were talking about the difference between Jürgen and Mike Spracklen, because both had coached him, and what he said was if in training something went wrong when Jürgen was coaching, he’d go into his training books and he’d do his calculations and he’d come back with an absolutely measured reason for why things had gone wrong with the training programme. Mike would look in his pockets, and he might or might not find a piece of paper which might or might not have a training programme on it from one week ago, one month ago, nine months ago. Then he’d say, ‘I think . . . ’ and he’d probably be absolutely right. “Mike is basically an intuitive coach. Redgrave: “I felt better prepared behind Jürgen than I ever did with Mike Spracklen. With Mike, suddenly we would have some unbelievable bits of speed. Andy [Holmes] and I broke the world record in coxed- and coxless-pairs in training two weeks before 1987 World Championships, where we were doing both events. “Two weeks before the final. A week before the competition started. Broke the world record. Smashed the world record! . . . but we really struggled through the World Championships. 6926 For the Canadian perspective, see Chapter 159. 6927 www.bosonmedia.co.uk He has an absolute love and feel for the sport. With Jürgen, it’s Teutonic, Germanic, structured, but they’re both very good coaches. “The fascinating thing is that there is more than one way to Heaven, and Steve’s a classic example of someone who went to Heaven both ways! Whether he found one way easier than the other, I wouldn’t know.”6929 Jürgen Grobler is quite simply the most successful coach in modern rowing history. Pinsent: “An unbroken run of Gold Medals back through the Olympic Games to 1972, save the boycotted Games of 1984, is not just unprecedented. It blows any other coach’s record out of the water. 6928 Redgrave, personal conversation, 2008 6929 Baillieu, personal conversation, 2008 1927
