THE SPORT OF ROWING throughout the Camp. I would have Purdy in my quad over ANYBODY else at that Camp, including Biglow. Purdy was that good!”7353 Altekruse: “It still seems almost too odd an alternate universe to believe. “All the Camp boats had made the finals in Lucerne. The quad had placed third, which was the best result for an American quad ever at an international regatta. Joe and I had placed fourth after only rowing in the double together, I mean since the Camp, for about two weeks.”7354 “As for me, all the rowing I did in Switzerland, my disappointment after not making the Singles Final, my concern about the schedule as laid out by Harry the first day of the sculling camp at Dartmouth, and finally my contracting bronchitis at Dartmouth between Luzern and Princeton . . . The point is, maybe all that training finally caught up with me a bit . . .”7355 Colgan: “The Trials were too soon after returning from Luzern since ALL THE BOATS THAT RACED AT LUZERN LOST! “We saw the potential problem in advance, but to a man we voted to race in Luzern against the world’s best. We were almost all 1980 retreads. We wanted to race against the best in the world. We did not want a tarnished medal from L.A., where the best crews would not race. Up until then, almost 70% of the world medals had been won by the East Bloc countries. We took that chance.”7356 Altekruse: “It was clear. Everybody was just flat. I don’t think there’s any deeper explanation. I don’t think there was anything about technique. We had all been trained together for at least a month, if not 7353 Colgan, personal correspondence, 2009 7354 Altekruse, op. cit. 7355 Altekruse, personal correspondence, 2009 7356 Colgan, op. cit. longer, and it came down purely to faulty planning.”7357 Of course, that’s easy to say now. Hindsight is always 20-20. Enquist: “In 1983, after five weeks of selection camp and Harry’s second set of selections, Brad and I were named the double. Eight days later, we raced in the Trials and won by 26 seconds. That is why having Trials for the Camp Double in 1984 seemed reasonable, and the added experience of international racing in Lucerne seemed to be a bonus. “I don’t think anybody could have predicted what happened.”7358 A month after the Los Angeles Olympics, Harry looked back on the 1984 strategy in a memorandum to the Men’s Olympic Rowing Committee. In March of 1983, the original plan had called for an unchallengeable camp to choose the double and quad. Parker: “In September, after enduring a spring and summer of grievance proceedings and being forced into challenge races in July of ‘83, I suggested to MORC that both the double and quad be made challenge races or be chosen through trials that national team boats would enter; that was a mistake. I had always maintained in the past that primary camp crews should be unchallenged, and I should have stuck to that position for ‘84! “The second mistake was to go ahead with the plans to race in Europe even though we now had the challenge races to row shortly after our return. Because we had won the challenge races so convincingly in ‘83, I thought, in September, that this was a reasonable risk. What I failed to allow for was the far shorter time it left us for selection of the double and quad, the significantly greater depth of good scullers, 7357 Altekruse, personal conversation, 2009 7358 Enquist, op. cit. 2048
