THE SPORT OF ROWING At the 1,000, Aly had open water on Koven who was beginning to separate himself from Chalupa and Čop. In fifteen strokes, Jamie moved up and passed the Egyptian. By 1,250, it was all over. At 1,500, a good race for second was developing between Willms and Čop, the two most recent World Champions, but Koven was more than two lengths clear and rowing well within himself at 34. At the end, Greg Searle came up to challenge Willms as the rest faded. The German and the Brit crossed the line above 40 strokes per minute, 0.09 seconds (less than a foot) apart. Willms claimed the Silver. Koven: “I was lucky in ‘97 because there was nice, flat water so that I was able to really apply myself, avoiding a lot of external problems. I finished the race, and I wasn’t even in pain. “You compare that to rowing the eight in ‘94. I’ve got a picture in my office of us standing on the awards dock in Indianapolis, and I’ve got my medal tucked inside my unisuit because I had been leaning over the dock throwing up into the water. It wasn’t exactly pleasant. “Two entirely different experiences.”7908 It is interesting to note that virtually all the successful North American single scullers during the last quarter of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st have been converted National Team sweep rowers: Yale’s John Biglow,7909 Bronze in 1981 and 1982, Harvard’s Tiff Wood,7910 Bronze in 1983, Harvard’s Andy Sudduth,7911 Silver in 1985, Princeton’s Anne Marden,7912 Silver in 1988, Canada’s 7908 Koven, op. cit. 7909 See Chapter 139 ff. 7910 See Chapter 140 ff. 7911 See Chapter 142. 7912 See Chapters 148 and 169. Derek Porter,7913 World Champion in 1993, Brown’s Jamie Koven, World Champion in 1997, and most recently Harvard’s Michelle Guerette,7914 Bronze in 2005 and 2007 and Silver in 2008. Greg Stone: “These were exceptional athletes. Biggie was the number four erg in the U.S., and probably better than that on a weight-corrected basis. Sudduth was number one in the world on the erg, as was Koven. Guerette is number three in the world. Strength matters.”7915 Spracklen: “In USA, there was not one athlete who had the athleticism that Steven Redgrave had. There were a lot of very good athletes. Jamie Koven was probably the best, but he wasn’t exceptional.”7916 Koven: “Mike Teti7917 once pointed out to me that if you look at the guys from the U.S. and Canada who have excelled in the singles, there was sort of a pattern. They did extremely well the year right after rowing in the eight. They were taking advantage of the intensity of training in the eight, because it is so challenging to duplicate that in a single, taking that intensity, taking the training program, taking all the stuff they learned from the eight, and then translating it into the single.”7918 Stone: “Biggie devolved a bit between 1981 and ‘84. I think it was his back and the lack of support from a team boat. He was quicker and tighter when just out of the eights.”7919 Koven: “A lot of people have said that small boats help the eight, but Teti would make the reverse argument. The single and the pair help the eight, but eight helps the single as well.”7920 7913 See Chapters 134 and 150. 7914 See Chapter 163. 7915 Stone, personal correspondence, 2008 7916 Moag, op. cit. 7917 U.S. Men’s Coach 1997 – 2008. 7918 Koven, op. cit. 7919 Stone, op. cit. 7920 Koven, op. cit. 2200