Chapter 2 20Th Century

THE SPORT OF ROWING To the readers of www.Rowperfect.co.uk This is the fifth installment on sources and illustrations, etc. will be an es- www.Rowperfect.co.uk of the latest draft of sential contribution to what has always been the beginning of my coming new book. intended to be a joint project of the rowing Many thanks again to Rebecca Caroe for community. making this possible. All my contact info is at my website. I will also be at the FISA Coaches’ Confe- Details about me and my book project rence in London in January. Or you can are available at www.rowingevolution.com. email me anytime at: For seven years I have been researching and [email protected]. writing a four volume comprehensive history of the sport of rowing with particular em- For a short time you can still access the phasis on the evolution of technique. In first four installments, which have been up- these last months before publication, I am dated thanks to feedback from readers like inviting all of you visitors to the British you. Additional chapters for your review Rowperfect website to review the near-final will continue to appear at regular intervals draft. Your comments, suggestions, correc- on www.Rowperfect.co.uk. tions, agreements, disagreements, additional TThhee SSppoorrtt ooff RRoowwiinngg AA CCoommpprreehheennssiivvee HHiissttoorryy bbyy PPeetteerr MMaalllloorryy VVoolluummee II GGeenneessiiss ddrraafffttt mmaannuussccrriiippttt JJaannuuaarryy 22001111 TThhee SSppoorrtt ooff RRoowwiinngg AA CCoommpprreehheennssiivvee HHiissttoorryy bbyy PPeetteerr MMaalllloorryy ddrraafffttt mmaannuussccrriiippttt JJaannuuaarryy 22001111 VVoolluummee II GGeenneessiiss Part IV English Orthodoxy Meets Classical Technique 177 THE SPORT OF ROWING 14. Steve Fairbairn Rowing Career – Influences – Biomechanical Principles Thomas E. Weil Collection Steve Fairbairn’s 1883 Oar Jesus College, Head of the River Bow J.E. Hayne 10st. 3lb. 65 kg, 2 E.T.H. Brandon 10st. 10lb. 68 kg, 3 H. Armitage 10st. 8lb. 67 kg, 4 H.B.S. Fowler 11st. 11lb. 75 kg, 5 F. Straker 11st. 11lb. 165 kg, 6 A.M. Hutchinson 12st. 2lb. 77 kg, 7 Steve Fairbairn 13st. 1lb. 83 kg, Stroke P.W. Atkin 12st 0lb. 76 kg, Coxswain C.E. Biscoe 8st. 2lb. 52 kg Throughout history, it has been traditional for members of championship boats to retain as trophies their oars, embellished with names, weights, dates, coats of arms, etc. Fortunately, some have been handed down to the present day. Since the early 19th Century, it has been common practice for English regatta officials to record athletes‟ weights (in stone) but not heights. In this book, I have tried to include both weights and heights in English and metric units whenever possible so that the reader may judge how the sizes of athletes have increased over the years. Throughout history, human organ- what was happening to English Orthodox izations such as governments or religions or Rowing Technique. political parties or bureaucracies or The English University rowing industries or individual commercial establishment soon became resistant to businesses have found themselves following change to such an extraordinary extent that increasingly rigid ideologies as time passes. it seems that only individuals from the lower Concepts that begin as revolutionary classes of English society or from the eventually become entrenched dogma, the furthest reaches of the British Empire were established orthodoxy, and their adherents capable of seeing past the “conservatism become increasingly intolerant of which was inbred in the comfortably-off viewpoints that do not follow the now upper and middle classes of the mother “officially” recognized norms. During the country‟s indigenous population,”648 and so half century after Egan and Shadwell, this is 648 Dodd, World Rowing, p. 158 178 ENGLISH ORTHODOX MEETS CLASSICAL TECHNIQUE I believe that it was no coincidence that Ned Hanlan, the man who first perfected Classical Technique, came from Canada. History will teach us that all the greats who have fundamentally altered future rowing have had one thing in common: an open mind, unfettered by tradition, prejudice or preconception. Steve Fairbairn When Ned Hanlan won the World Professional Championship in 1880, there Fairbairn on Rowing was already change in the air in Great Britain. Whether the English Orthodox Concurrent Classical Technique in Fairbairn‟s day establishment liked it or not, sliding seats had the inherent capacity to transform rowing, and it was only a matter of time before the cork came out of the bottle. The Tidewater clubs, principally Thames and London, sharing their waters with professional scullers and coaches and never in the thrall of Oxbridge Orthodoxy, were already changing in the 1870s in response to sliding seats, placing more emphasis on initial leg drive,649 and we shall see that one man in particular, Joe Sadler (1839-1889), the World Professional Sculling Champion from 1874 to 1876, was even coaching one of FISA 2004 DVD the colleges at Cambridge with great Concurrent Classical Technique success. in the 2004 U.S. Olympic Eight The man who would bring Classical In both cases, legs and backs were caught in the middle Technique right to the heart of English of their motions, and while arms and shoulders were University rowing was, like Hanlan, straining, outside elbows had yet to begin to break. another far-flung colonist. Born into a well-to-do Australian farming family of Scottish descent, Stephen Fairbairn (1862- secondary school years at Geelong 1938) would come to Britain to attend Grammar School, near Melbourne in the Cambridge University and would actually Australian State of Victoria, , and to say that have the opportunity to see Hanlan row he excelled in cricket, rugby football, track, swimming, gymnastics and rowing would be shortly after his arrival. 650 a pitiful understatement. A descendent of generations of He was a large man with inexhaustible exceptional athletes, Fairbairn spent his energy. At the age of 14, he walked across 649 Bourne, Memories, pp. 95, 105 650 Fairbairn of Jesus, p. 41 179 THE SPORT OF ROWING jcbc.jesus.cam.ac.uk Jesus College Boat Club The College Arms consist of the shield of Bishop John Alcock (1430-1500), consisting of three cock‟s heads and his golden mitre surrounded by a red border bearing the red crowns of the See of Ely, of which he was bishop when he founded Jesus College, Cambridge in 1496. In Fairbairn‟s day, JCBC rowed with black blades with a band at the tip made up of diagonal swaths of black and red, as shown with the oar at the beginning of this chapter. Today Jesus rows with black blades with two narrow red stripes near the tip, as shown above. Tasmania with his brother and a cousin, headwind, in 23 hours. Unfortunately, he making 90 miles in their first 36 hours. That never collected on the wager.651 set the tone for the rest of his extraordinary life. When Steve was still 15, his older On top of other athletic endeavors, he brother George came home from Cambridge thought nothing of walking 40 miles a day University where he had won the Ladies‟ for many days in a row. He once walked Plate in 1876 rowing for Jesus College. from London to Inverness, Scotland. On Steve‟s son, Ian Fairbairn: “The young holiday when he first got to England, before Steve was greatly impressed by the ensuing breakfast he would run up the tourist trail by controversy between his brother and the himself to the top of Mt. Skiddaw, 3,000 local rowing talent, in which controversy the feet (900m) of vertical climbing, and then self-taught methods of rowing prevailed, and take on more challenging hikes with his George Fairbairn was converted from the companions during the rest of the day. On a traditionalism which he had imbibed at bet, he once canoed from Putney to Henley, Cambridge. 62 miles or 100km including a detour, through locks, against the current and into a 651 Fairbairn of Jesus, p. 44 ff 180 ENGLISH ORTHODOX MEETS CLASSICAL TECHNIQUE “Two years later, in 1879, Steve‟s the extent that it became a matter of national second brother, Charles, returned in like pride. When Trickett lost to Hanlan in 1880, circumstances, having rowed 6 in the the result was considered to be a national winning Cambridge crew of that year and 4 calamity, such was the importance of the in the Jesus crew which won the Grand.”652 sport.”657 When Charles, too, was converted, Hanlan then defended his title against Steve never forgot. When he later followed another Australian, Elias Laycock, in in the footsteps of his brothers to England, London on February 14, 1881. Metropolitan he was predisposed to be skeptical of the amateur and professional rowers were English Orthodox rowing he would find carefully watching Hanlan as he rowed his there. revolutionary Classical Technique on the Fairbairn: “In my last year at longest slides yet seen. [Geelong], I coached the school boat from Steve Fairbairn did not arrive in time to stroke, and we won the Public Schools of see either of these matches, nor is it likely Victoria Boatrace. This is a big event.”653 that he was present when Hanlan defeated In the fall of 1881, he became the fifth Englishman Robert Boyd in Newcastle- of six brothers to enroll at Jesus College.654 Upon-Tyne in the north of England on April 3, 1882, just two days after Steve‟s first Steve in Britain appearance in the Boat Race, but it seems reasonable to speculate that Steve, an Here was the state of English rowing as enthusiastic 19-year-old Australian rower Steve Fairbairn arrived: transplanted to Cambridge, might have made Sliding seats had been introduced into the effort to get to London to join the the Boat Race only eight years earlier.

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