THE SPORT OF ROWING 1 CAN 5:35.01 2 GER 5:36.98 3 ITA 5:37.14 4 USA1 5:37.26 5 EGY 5:40.88 6 USA2 5:44.03 Beery: “Teti had implied that if both boats won in Lucerne, he would leave the lineups alone. It didn’t turn out that way . . . and I often wonder what would have hap- pened if he had. No one can say, but I do remember specifically thinking that we were going to win in Lucerne.”8238 Teti: “And the myth continues that I then put the four into the eight. “No! “I selected the eight. Then I took four guys out of the eight to go row the four in Lucerne. “The other thing that people don’t know is that the four that won in Lucerne, well, the other four guys in the eight never lost to them once they all got back from their trip.”8239 Teti on Coaching Teti: “Not only do I have to select the best athletes, the best boat movers, but they also have to have a certain character and a certain chemistry, and that can’t be forced. That’s something you either have or you don’t have. That’s not something that you can teach.”8240 On this subject, Harry Parker has said: “Rowing is a special skill, and the really good people have it, and the rest of us don’t. There are gifted oarsmen, and you can’t cre- ate those people. “That’s just like me playing golf or ten- nis or baseball. There’s just no way I’d ever excel! It would never happen. 8238 Beery, op. cit. 8239 Teti, op. cit. 8240 Ibid. FISA 1998 Video Mike Teti U.S. National Men’s Coach 1996-2008 “I don’t think people appreciate that that’s true of rowing also. The really gifted rowers are just gifted. Yes, they have to be taught, they have to be coached, they have to train, but what they have is something spe- cial, and there are other people who will never get it.”8241 Teti: “If you watch that race in Lucerne, our four rowed the same rhythm the eight later rowed, and that was Bryan’s rhythm, so technically that’s where I would agree with Harry Parker, who said that if you’ve got a really good stroke, and by good stroke I mean he’s got everything, the complete package, then you’ve got the battle 60% won. I really believe that.”8242 In his own time, Steve Fairbairn con- curred: “I do not coach for any movement of the body. That has all got to come from inside you, laddie, and it comes uncon- sciously.”8243 8241 Parker, personal conversation, 2004 8242 Teti, op. cit. 8243 Fairbairn On Rowing, p. 377 2308
