THE ERA OF POLARIZATION Sometimes there’s not much you can do about it.”8130 Klepacki: “Musical chairs over in Syd- ney. Mike wanted to move me from 6-seat to stroke after the reps and put Chris in 6. “I said to him, ‘Mike you’re grasping at straws. If you want to make a move, go pull Wherley from the four8131 and put him in the eight.’ “Obviously, we couldn’t do that unless there was a medical reason, so our hands were tied.”8132 Ahrens: “The rep in 2000, I think that was the hardest race I ever rowed in my en- tire life. It was us and the Romanians bat- tling to win the rep, and we ended up beat- ing them by, I don’t know, two or three inches? But that in some ways was the per- formance that I felt was the most courageous of that crew in the sense that we knew that it was all about effort and pride.”8133 Klepacki: “I think we won the repêchage by a bow ball over the Romani- ans. It was the hardest I’ve ever pulled in my life, and we went into the final wishing and hoping for the best, knowing that we were a crew that was completely capable of dominating the field and winning a Gold Medal. “I rowed stroke, and we finished fifth.”8134 8130 Ahrens, op. cit. 8131 Observers concluded that three-time World Champion Mike Wherley was moved to the cox- less-four to make way for newcomer Dave Si- mon, a Brown undergraduate with a 5:41 erg score. In fact, Wherley was pulled from the eight in order to strengthen the coxless-four and qualify the U.S. in that event for the Olympics. Then Teti was informed by FISA that he could not return Wherley to the eight. Teti has acknowledged this as a tactical error on his part. See Jeff Moag, Mike Teti Opens Up, Rowing News, March 2011, p. 47 8132 Klepacki, op. cit. 8133 Ahrens, op. cit. 8134 Klepacki, op. cit. Ahrens: “I’m not ashamed of our result. It was disappointing personally, but at the same time I think that everybody in that boat put forward a huge effort, and I think that crew had the quality of people as people in terms of racing, aggressiveness, competi- tiveness, toughness. I think the standard was very high. “You had guys who mentally were just incredibly tough and incredibly good at rac- ing, Bob Kaehler, Porter Collins, Tom Welsh, everybody in that boat. “Tom Welsh would go through walls before he was going to stop. Same thing with all those guys. That aggressiveness came through in the style of racing that we had, and I knew that in a tough, tight battle, that crew would win.”8135 National Team Disease But having the best athletes of a country come together for four years to prepare for a single race, the Olympic final in the men’s eights, having them find success in the in- termediate years and then failing in the one race that counted was becoming a painful recurring pattern, and not just in the U.S. Ratzeburg in 1964 and 1972, GDR in 1972, New Zealand in 1968 and 1984, Ger- many in 1992, the U.S. in 1976, 1988, 1996, and now 2000. Soon the Canadians in 2004 would be added to the list. Kaehler: “In three Olympics [1992 in the quad, 1996 and 2000 in the eight], it happened to me all three times! The crews that I rowed in the year before were much better crews than the ones that ended up go- ing to the Olympics, and the replacements were solely based on ergometer scores. Pe- riod. Nothing to do with technique! Just power, and in a lot of cases, the guys who have the most power are not good boat mov- ers. 8135 Ahrens, op. cit. 2279