THE SPORT OF ROWING understood to be death to fair results.7538 Most damning of all, even the sympathetic Gill quotes Penny describing the complete collapse of the boat stroked by Penny and containing Clark. She blamed it on Topolski’s calling for Penny to lower the stroke rate. Kiesling described Clark as winded, his ribs aching, “a long way from top condition.”7539 Penny: “I took the rate down again. Then the power came down, too, until we were rowing light pressure. “It didn’t matter anymore because Clark had won.”7540 Kiesling also quoted Penny describing what happened after the collapse. Penny: “The other boat was soon two strokes higher than mine. At the higher stroke rate, they were catching up fast, but Topolski kept calling for me to lower my cadence. I was damned if I was going to drop to a 30 when the other boat was at a 32. I tried to let Dan know that something was wrong. I gave him the finger. Taking one hand off the oar handle to do it cost us a seat or so. In the last minute we were still in front, but I realized that Macdonald’s boat was sprinting. I tried to go with them. We raised our rating to 34 strokes per minute, and the first thing I heard from Topolski was, ‘Penny, take it down.’ Jon Fish, the coxswain in the other boat, was reading 37 on his counter.”7541 Macdonald in his diary and Topolski in his book have as much as accused Chris Penny of intentionally and flagrantly cheating to help Chris Clark,7542 but if the accusation was true or even suspected, why did Topolski allow the sham to continue? Why wasn’t the seat race stopped midway and rerun properly? 7538 For instance, Gill, p. 49 7539 Kiesling, op. cit., p. 93 7540 Qtd. by Gill, p. 88 7541 Qtd. by Kiesling, op. cit, p. 93 7542 which Penny has denied. Instead, the seat race was allowed play out. Further, it was done only once and not repeated, as one might normally expect if it was indeed the last contest of the year for the crucial last seat in the boat.7543 The workout concluded with Clark seat racing Cadoux-Hudson on starboard and losing badly. Then perceptions took over. The team members themselves did the math. Without taking into consideration the stroke rate discrepancy and/or the alleged manipulation by Penny, Clark had finished just barely ahead of Macdonald. Ward: “An enormous amount has been written and said about it, but it was quite a close race. I’m in the camp that thinks that from what I saw on the water – which wasn’t that much – Chris came out slightly ahead of Don. I think that was the ‘official’ verdict in Dan’s book as well7544.”7545 Topolski: “A minor seat race result of a few feet, arguably unfairly influenced, was suddenly being cracked up as a finally decisive selection trial.”7546 Ward: “[During that same practice] on bowside, I raced Hugh Pelham, and I beat him7547 – though I had lost to him in the previous seat racing at Thorpe Park. “So I think we all left that day thinking 7543 The total lack of professional rigor of this seat race is baffling, even given possible weather and time constraints. By 1987, seat race procedures in the United States had evolved over a period of more than two decades to a high state of competence and reliability. 7544 Clark over Macdonald by 1/12 length. 7545 Ward, op. cit. 7546 Topolski, p. 135 7547 If Kiesling’s and Topolski’s and Gill’s descriptions of the Henley workout are at all accurate, then the seat race between Ward and Pelham was also invalidated by the foot stretcher and by the stroke rates. Interested readers should refer to the passages in their entirety in True Blue starting on p. 128, in The Yanks at Oxford starting on p. 85 and The Last Amateurs starting on p. 92. 2096
