THE ERA OF POLARIZATION 152. Perspective in Canadian Rowing 2004 Canadian and Romanian Women’s Pairs – Al Morrow and the Sprack Back in Perspective Al Morrow has been coach of the Canadian women from the early 1990s through 2004 and again from the end of 2009 forward. He’s a Rowing Canada Aviron employee, and for a few months each year from 1988 through 2010 he voluntarily coached the women’s rowing team at the University of Western Ontario. His office was in the same building as that of Volker Nolte. At the beginning of his international career, Canada won the women’s pairs, fours and eights at the 1991 World Championships and then again at the 1992 Olympics.7975 The wins kept coming, World Championship pairs in 1997 through 1999, twenty-three Olympic and World Championship medals in all. Morrow was named FISA Coach of the Year in 1999. But there has been a disturbing trend for Canadian women in recent Olympiads. In 1992, they won three Gold Medals. In 1996, it was one Gold, two Silvers and a Bronze. Since then, just a Bronze in 2000 and again in 2008. In 2004 no medal at all, just a fourth in the pairs, their priority boat, and they didn’t even qualify for the final in the eights. 7975 See Chapter 134. What happened? Certainly many factors contributed to the decline. Morrow: “Canadian rowing does not ebb and flow on technique alone but on many variables – the athlete pool, other countries’ athlete pools, the boats we emphasize, coaching, funding, administration . . . and a little luck!”7976 Indeed, there were numerous factors at play between 1992 and 2004, but the fundamental technical change most relevant to the subject of this book was that the 1990s force application strategy employed by Marnie McBean, Kathleen Heddle and their teammates had been gradually, imperceptibly, but soon completely, abandoned. 2004 Women’s Pairs In the months after Athens, Ted Nash Collection Morrow kept returning in his mind to the 2004 race between the winning Romanian and fourth-place Canadian Women’s Pairs. He described his preoccupation at the 2005 Canadian Coaches’ Conference in London, Ontario. Morrow: “It’s worth looking at the Romanian Women’s Pair, Georgeta Damian and Viorica Susanu, a top international crew, 2001 and 2002 World 7976 Morrow, personal correspondence, 2008 2219