THE ERA OF POLARIZATION had cracked two ribs rowing with me on the river here [in Philadelphia]. “We were going to win the Trials! We were beating Teti and Strotbeck7517.”7518 Had Clark remained healthy that summer, he might have ended up with Lyons in the mix for a spot in the coxless- four that Ted Nash was putting together at Penn A.C.7519 With Lyons aboard, that four went on to win the World Championship. One can only imagine Chris Clark’s sense of lost opportunity. Lyons: “So Chris could not train from mid-June until we got back to Oxford in October. When he got there, he was nervous because he knew he was out of shape, yet he was pretty confident because he also knew we had a very strong crew.”7520 Clark skipped much of the fall team testing at Oxford. Tony Ward: “Trying Chris Clark on bowside was not an unreasonable thing at the time. But Chris had been injured over the summer and returned out of shape, got ill, got assigned to his unnatural side, and then tried to get back into shape in a frustrating environment where he couldn’t really pull, couldn’t really work because he was on his wrong side. “This combination was unhealthy for him and for everyone around him.”7521 Clark: “I just couldn’t do it, and it really bugged me. I was determined to get it sorted, but the harder I tried the worse I got, or so it seemed. It was terrible.”7522 The first overt resistance to Topolski’s placing of Clark on bowside came in November when Lyons insisted that the Oxford coxed-fours entry that would include him in the Fours Head of the River on the 7517 rowing for Vesper. They went on to win the Trials and place tenth in Nottingham. 7518 Lyons, op. cit. 7519 Cross, p. 137 7520 Lyons, op. cit. 7521 Ward, op. cit. 7522 Qtd. by Gill, p. 80 Tideway be Penny in stroke, himself in 3, Clark on strokeside in 2, Australian Rob Leach in bow and Fish coxing. Topolski acquiesced. They came in 28th, well behind three Cambridge fours. It was the worst Oxford showing in a decade, and Topolski was furious. The Americans dismissed the results as irrelevant and blamed a heavy boat which took on water. 1987 Selection As training at Oxford progressed during 1986/87, the central challenge for Dan Topolski eventually and surprisingly became selection of the Blue Boat amidst the constant barrage of disagreement and criticism. At all levels and in all eras of rowing history, the task of selection tends to be stressful for all involved, and it became increasingly easy in the last half century to second guess a selection decision since modern ergometer and seat race results tend to be known by all Nevertheless, selection usually is completed without undue bloodletting. Tom Ward: “Coaches have an element of discretion to make judgments about who they think the crew should be – and don’t necessarily expect that the whole group will always agree. By and large, that is accepted.”7523 During the fall of 1986 in testing on land and in races in singles, pairs and fours, Oxford President Donald Macdonald, determined to lead by example, consistently placed at or very near the top of the squad. When he participated, which was seldom, Clark scored far back, whereas he had been near the top the previous year. 7523 Ward, op. cit. team members. 2093
