THE SPORT OF

To the readers of www.row2k.com

News concerning my four-volume book, The following .pdf is in the format in- now called The Sport of Rowing, Two Cen- tended for the final printed book. It is from turies of Competition, is coming thick and the fourth of four volumes. fast as the October, 2011 publishing date gets closer. I am now taking reservations I need you! for the hard-bound limited collector’s edi- tion. If you find any typos in this chapter, or Unlike the soft-bound regular edition if you have any questions, comments, sug- with its black & white images, the collector gestions, corrections, agreements, disagree- edition will feature full-color illustrations ments, additional sources or illustrations, if like you see in these row2k excerpts, and you would like to add your own perspective, each copy will be consecutively numbered, etc. please email me at the address below. signed and dedicated by me according to the Your input represents an essential contribu- instructions of the purchaser. tion to what has always been intended to be Each person who pre-purchases a collec- a joint project of the rowing community, so tor copy prior to publication will be listed as please contribute. If you and I end up final- a subscriber in both editions. I encourage ly disagreeing on some relevant point or everyone to visit www.rowingevolution.com, other, I will be thrilled to present both alter- read the blog and sign up for the newsletter. natives so the readers can decide for them- Those who wish to reserve a low number for selves. their collector edition may email me directly at [email protected]. Incidentally, many thanks to all who wrote to thank me and to make corrections This latest excerpt on row2k is the fifth and add comments, photos, anecdotes, etc. of five that touch on the women’s rowing in to the recent postings on the 1984 U.S. the 1970s, 1980s and beyond. men’s scullers, on Ted Nash, and on wom- The subject of this draft chapter is U.S. en’s rowing during the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s. women’s rowing during the early 2000s Drafts with all the updates are gradually be- under Coach Tom Terhaar. As Tom him- ing posted for you on row2k. self made clear in the chapter posted last You can always email me anytime at: week, this is a continuation of the narrative begun in the 1990s under Coach Hartmut [email protected].

Buschbacher. Many thanks.

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THE SPORT OF ROWING

156. Tom Terhaar

2001 to Athens and Beyond

bacher needed help on the National Wom- en‟s Team. “Jen Dore,7621 my girlfriend and now my wife, had been invited down to selection camp and spent most of the year in Chatta- nooga. She was a very good rower, and Hartmut wanted to be sure he kept her, so he called me up and said, „I could always use another coach. Why don‟t you come on down?‟ “I got totally lucky. It was incredible. I was the assistant from „94 through 2000. I have been the national head coach since 2001.

Author Tom Terhaar Kernschlag to Schubschlag U.S. National Women‟s Coach For the 2004 quadrennial, the majority of women who tried out for the National Parallel Evolution Team had arrived pounding the catch as ag- gressively as their male counterparts. For the American women, 2004 Terhaar: “The number one reason why represented a rebirth similar to that of the everyone in America attacks the catch is not American men, the Olympic Silver Medal a technical thing, it‟s a psychological thing. after two decades of disappointment, and as You‟re in an , you‟re going, you want with the men, a supportive young coach led to win, and logically your body is telling the American Renaissance. you that if you put more pressure on . . . That coach was Tom Terhaar: “But rowing‟s not a power sport, believe “I rowed at St. Joe‟s Collegiate in Buf- it or not. Everything is slow-twitch. falo for about two and a half years. Then I “Starting with college kids, it‟s pretty went to Northeastern University my fresh- simple. Right away they can jump on it with man year and rowed heavyweight, and then the legs, they can go very hard for that first transferred to Rutgers and rowed little bit of the stroke, no problem, but ac- lightweights there. tually getting them to do that with the legs “Right after I graduated, I started coach- and to accelerate is what takes a lot of time. ing the freshman lightweights at Rutgers. From there, I heard that Hartmut Busch- 7621 See Chapter 153.

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“The biggest problem for American less skill involved. You can get away with a coaches today is that they don‟t get to coach lot more. small boats. If they did, then they would see “I‟m not an expert, but I would say that the inefficiency of attacking the catch. before the big blades when there was less “It‟s the culture. If you could get the surface area with a less efficient blade, if culture of everyone just rowing in eights to you got on it quicker and harder, perhaps change, then there wouldn‟t be that issue. you were going to get a little bit more bounce out of the boat, maybe a little bit “As it has been with the men, rowing more speed. pairs has been the biggest educator for the “Maybe it made sense. It was ineffi- women athletes on the National Team, so cient, but you could definitely get away with basically it‟s been my job to get them com- hitting it without as many repercussions, fortable in the small boats first and foremost. whereas today when you‟ve got a lot of sur- I feel that if you let everyone row the pairs, face area and you hit it, there‟s a lot more you don‟t have to coach nearly as intensive- resistance initially, and then in the second ly because they‟re getting a tremendous half of the stroke there‟s nothing. amount of feedback themselves.”7622 , 2004 5-seat, did just More Sprack Back7625 dreadfully early on in the pair: “The stronger you are, the more likely it is that you will be Terhaar: “The Canadian men have terrible in a small boat as you get started. made a definite impression on me. For a while, my teammates did not want to “There are some things which make be paired with me, and my coaches won- boats win consistently. Obviously, first and dered if I would ever get it. foremost, you have to have the athletes. “My best pair rows were always with You have to have the right bodies and the amazing women who could row a pair with right heads. That‟s always a constant, but anyone and win. It was Lianne Nelson, 7623 watching the Canadians row, it‟s fantastic and Portia McGee who because it‟s something new and different led me to win races in the small boats. and makes you think. It makes you eva- “Each member of the squad worked tire- luate, and watching them row, I saw some- lessly in the pairs and singles. [By 2008,] thing very specific, and a lot of it had to do we could field three pairs to be competitive with training. at the World Cup stops, and the other com- 7624 “There wasn‟t a lot of technical coach- binations were not far behind.” ing of the layback with the Canadian men. It was something that the athletes came up Big Blades with themselves. This is second hand, of course, but I‟ve heard they were just rowing Terhaar: “If you think about it, there‟s in small boats and trying to move the boat as been another innovation in rowing that has far as they could at a controlled stroke rate, dramatically changed the way that people and they found that if they just really hauled row, and that‟s the big blade. There is a lot off on it, they got a little bit more out of it. “I have a lot of respect for Mike Sprack- len because the guy has been winning for 7622 Terhaar, personal conversation, 2004 7623 years. The training is very hard, and they The latter two would make the U.S. women‟s were able to do something in a race that a lot eight in 2006. 7624 Qtd. by Liz Bernal, Summer Downsizing, Rowing News, August 2010, p. 36 7625 See Chapter 151.

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THE SPORT OF ROWING of people weren‟t, which was to absolutely instincts out, instead I could say, „Okay, fol- kill off the field in the first 700 meters. low Lianne, let yourselves use your bodies a “I saw that, and that told me that per- little bit more, and go to town!‟ haps this was something that could help us. “Lianne‟s example made my job much “If you analyze women‟s rowing over easier. It let her teammates evolve naturally the past twenty years, pretty much every and let them row the way that suited their Gold Medal winner was ahead at the 700 personality. I just encouraged them to use a meter mark. little bit more body, let them swing. “Technically, Athens was the first “Once the 2004 boat was selected, and Olympics where it didn‟t happen because we this was how Lianne rowed, so this was how were ahead there, even though we were bas- the rest of us were going to row, as soon as ically even.”7626 that happened, the boat clicked.”7629 The result was Silver in Athens, the first Lianne Nelson Olympic women‟s eights medal of any color for America in twenty years! As the Athens Olympics approached and Anna Mickelson rowed in the 5-seat in as Bryan Volpenhein was leading a revolu- Athens: tion in rowing technique on the men‟s “One of the first things that Tom needed team,7627 a similar revolution was occurring to do when he selected the boat was find a among the women. stroke. That was key. We had to build eve- Terhaar: “In 2004, it was a conscious rything around her, and Lianne’s rhythm and decision on my part to go from really trying the length of her stroke was the main differ- very hard to teach acceleration, something ence between 2004 and the earlier eights. that my athletes had never felt before, to “We always had these really strong allowing them to evolve themselves into women with hearts of steel who would go their own comfortable area.7628 I was having anywhere, but the stroke was short and everyone row in pairs, rowing with different choppy, partly because everyone learns to athletes, and we started to see combinations attack because that’s the way that we row in that worked. America. [my emphasis] “Lianne Nelson was the fastest pair, “Lianne made us longer. almost no matter what I did, and as the year “She also knows how to race. She progressed, it was clear that she was getting knows how to pace herself, how to move on tougher and tougher and fitter and fitter, and another crew, how to break a boat, all those the athletes could sense it, too, and that was things. Those are definite mental advantag- a big part of it. es. It‟s not that she‟s trying harder. She‟s “Lianne accelerates and swings with her just smarter. body. I knew that she had experience strok- “I think the biggest thing Lianne ing, and I made the decision to put her in brought to our team was experience. She‟d stroke, so instead of trying to teach these big been to the Games before. She knew what horses behind her how to do it perfectly, you she wanted, and she knew how to get there. know, saying something like „This is the “Rowing with her was comforting. As a rhythm! Just do it!‟ and taking their natural stroke, she was a commander, and we knew she would get us where we wanted to go.”7630 7626 Terhaar, op cit. 7627 See Chapter 156. 7628 This resembles the strategy of American 7629 Terhaar, op cit. men‟s coach Mike Teti. See Chapter 156. 7630 Mickelson, personal conversation, 2005

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United States Women’s Eight Laying back at the World Cup, Oberschleißheim 2004 Bow 5‟10” 177 cm 163 lb. 74 kg, 2 6‟0” 182 cm 183 lb. 83 kg, 3 Megan Dirkmaat 6‟1” 185 cm 179 lb. 81 kg, 4 6‟0” 182 cm 183 lb. 83 kg, 5 Anna Mickelson 6‟0” 183 cm 165 lb. 75 kg, 6 6‟2” 187 cm 170 lb. 77 kg, 7 6‟4” 193 cm 179 lb. 81 kg, Stroke Lianne Nelson 5‟10” 177 cm 150 lb. 68 kg, coxswain Compare Korholz‟s layback to the rest of the boat.

Laurel Korholz Schubschlag revolution that Lianne Nelson represented. One woman in the 2004 crew besides Laurel Korholz: “For me as an expe- Lianne represented the old guard in Ameri- rience, the biggest difference between the can women‟s rowing, having been the only boat in „96 and the boat in 2004 was that in member of the „96 eight still competing. 2004 we were prepared to race in the Olym- She also articulated well the gap between pics, and in „96 we just weren‟t., and proba- the Modern Orthodox Kernschlag majority bly the reason we were so prepared in 2004 in the country and the Classical Technique is that everyone learned from „96.

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Ranier Empacher

FISA 2004 DVD

2004 U.S. Women’s Eight 6 Laurel Korholz +10°, +30° to -10°, 0-5, 0-8, 4-10 Modern Orthodox Kernschlag Laurel was the last generational holdout on Tom Terhaar‟s squad.

“That‟s just what my body does, so that‟s how I row.”

“For me, technique is whatever makes able to row in that manner. It‟s a body type the boat move the fastest. If there had been thing, I think, more than anything else. I different people in that boat, it might been a know she used a longer layback, but it‟s not different technique that made the boat go like I took a stand and said I was going to fast. lay back just so far, and that was it. That‟s just what my body does, so that‟s how I row. “We were all well aware that Lianne “I definitely front-half it. I graduated was good at moving small boats, and I had from Cal back in John Squadrone‟s day. I wonderful rows with Lianne in straight- guess it‟s a mixture of being taught that ap- fours as far back as „94. Yes, we worked on proach, rowing with people that were shorter greater swing [in 2004] . . . towards the end, than me, and my personality. I want to pull, but I think that with Lianne stroking the and I like to pull as soon as possible.”7631 boat, that‟s kind of what she does, so we pretty much had to do what she did. “I think that Lianne has been rowing like that since day one. I have never been 7631 Korholz, personal conversation, 2006

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To an extent, Korholz‟s place in the 2004 boat was analogous to ‟ place in the 1984 eight. Both women were by far the tal- lest, strongest, most imposing athletes on their crew. Both were of the previous genera- tion of athletes, members of the Olympic eight of eight years earlier. Both women were segmented-force Kern- schlag rowers in a Schub- schlag boat. Neither swung to the finish with her team- mates. Both were neverthe- less the best candidates for their seat. Lianne Nelson: “Regard- less of technique, Laurel de- served to be in that boat. She was amazingly strong!”7632

Nelson’s Technique

Lianne Nelson is a prod- FISA 2004 DVD uct of the Seattle junior scul- ling community, coached by Lianne Nelson, Stroke United States Women‟s Eight Olympic Champion Paul 7633 +10°, +35° to -40°, 0-9, 0-10, 0-10 Classical Technique Schubschlag Enquist and representing both Lakeside School and Instead of typical American explosive catch, legs went down steadily. Green Lake Crew. Rhythm was similar to that of Bryan Volpenhein, strong acceleration and back swing from entry to release. She learned to really swing her body and accele- rate the boat during her freshman year at to the release, with what often looks like Princeton. Dan Roock, then Princeton excessive layback, but with what is actually women‟s coach, later Cornell men‟s coach, a natural, continuous total body drive. Her boats have little check and remarkably little remembers: “Lori Dauphiny, the novice 7634 coach at the time, is in my opinion one of bounce in the bow.” the finest coaches of drive connection in the Lori is now Head Women‟s Coach at business. Princeton. “Lori‟s expertise is in using simple lan- guage to get great connection between the In 2004, after Lianne had established legs and body, and a continuous acceleration herself at the top of the National Team pair matrix and had been selected to stroke the

7632 Nelson, personal conversation, 2005 7633 See Chapter 139 ff. 7634 Rook, personal correspondence, 2005

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THE SPORT OF ROWING eight, Tom began to “encourage” the boat to work solely with the back end and picking it adjust to her rhythm. up light, you get nothing! It‟s a golden Anna Mickelson: “During the whole mean, very hard to describe, very hard to fours years that I have been in the eight, achieve. Tom always had something that we were “With a slight acceleration on the recov- focusing on. It was a progression, and the ery [in 2006], I think Tom is trying to break very, very last thing that we added in was the cycle of false slide control [leading to the body swing. Definitely in the last year, hesitation at the catch]. He wants them to once we had learned to connect with our come up the slide and go right in. legs at the right time, we just learned to feel “I think that everything that Tom does is it more instead of it going in sequence of an attempt to get the athlete to feel the boat. legs first, then this, then this. What he really wants is for each individual “Tom really started having us lay back athlete to be far more in tune with what is more when we were training in Italy be- going on in the water, the actual pressure tween the two World Cups. He wanted to be they‟re putting on the face of the blade.”7637 sure that people were picking the boat up before we added the body. We did a lot of Lianne’s Secret drills while we were in Italy to kind of con- nect everything. Then we started doing What makes Lianne Nelson so interest- drills where we were laying back more. ing in the context of rowing technique is that “I think that Tom has things pretty cal- throughout her National Team career she has culated. I felt that he kind of did everything had an uncompetitive ergometer score. in phases, and the body was one of the last Lianne: “The difference between Bryan things that he worked on. Volpenhein and me is that Bryan has the “At the end of a four-year cycle, that whole package. I don‟t. Bryan‟s in a league was the point for us to begin to „swing.‟ of his own. He has the erg, he has the boat “But all my coaches for my entire ca- moving skills, and he has the head. I think reer, Jan [Harville at the UW] and Hart- 7635 that all three make up the rower. I think that mut and Tom, all have been saying the I have two of them. I think I can move a same thing. It‟s always the same, just dif- boat, and I have the head, but I definitely ferent ways to say it, which is put the blade don‟t have the raw power that Bryan has. in the water, then push, which is the trickiest 7636 “Or my teammates have, for that mat- part, and accelerate!” ter.”7638 Laurel Korholz retired after 2004 and Lianne moves boats despite a poor erg is now Tom Terhaar‟s assistant on the Na- score, so it is difficult to avoid concluding tional Team: “I think Tom‟s really trying that her boat moving ability comes largely with the young athletes to get them to feel from her Schubschlag Classical Technique. what‟s going on. Nowadays, I think there‟s Nelson first represented the U.S. in 1994 a great emphasis on being in tune with what after her junior year at Princeton. After the boat is doing, emphasizing working with stroking the FISA Champion Under-23 the boat instead of just hammering at it. women‟s four, she and Mary McCagg were There‟s not so much trying to move the boat picked to be the spare pair for the senior as fast off the front end. I don‟t think we‟ve team. Not accepting their inferior status, taken emphasis away from the front. If you they entered and won the Trials, beating the

7635 See Chapter 153. 7637 Korholz, op cit. 7636 Mickelson, op cit. 7638 Nelson, op cit.

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THE WORLD COMES FULL CIRCLE designated National Team pair, and then placed sixth in the Worlds in In- dianapolis.7639 In 1995, she stroked the World Champion coxless-four,7640 and in 1996, she ended up the spare for the eight, losing the competition for the last seat in the boat on the last day to Laurel Korholz through an ergometer test, Lianne‟s Achilles‟ heel. After the Olympics, she took a year off to get married. When she returned, she stroked the U.S. eight to Sil- ver in 1998, won the petite FISA 2004 DVD final in the pair in 1999 and stroked the eight again to a Lianne Nelson (above, right) Divine inspiration? disappointing sixth place at the Sydney Olympics in The Ecstasy of St. Theresa 2000. by Gianlorenzo Bernini After her second Olym- Santa Maria della Vittoria pics, she took two years off, Rome this time to have a child, and returned to place sixth in the pair in 2003. pics Tom Terhaar: “The focus before the without a medal. She had done that before, 2004 Olympic year was not to win the and she was not going to do that again. World Championships but to qualify all the “Our number one goal was to make the boats for Athens, which, with the exception final, our number two goal was to earn a of one boat, we did, and that was a very medal, and our number three goal was to happy outcome. change the color of that medal as we went “If Lianne had been in the eight at that along, and that was what we had in our point, probably the pair would not have minds and we were going on from there. qualified, so she helped the program tre- “The other thing that we had in our mendously.”7641 minds was that it wasn‟t going to be over Nelson‟s pair in 2003 was coached by until it was over. It was going to be 2,000 Lori Dauphiny, Lianne‟s first coach at meters, and so no matter what happened in Princeton. the beginning, it was going to take until the end, and I‟m glad that was our focus be- The Race in 2004 cause I think that really helped us. “We had great starting speed, so the Anna Mickelson: “Lianne will tell you middle 1,500 meters was key for us, getting she was not coming home from these Olym- a base rhythm and being at base and having a sustainable speed was something that we had really focused on, being internally moti- 7639 See Chapter 153. 7640 vated, knowing where the other boats were Ibid. and knowing how we were going to respond. 7641 Terhaar, op cit.

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been in the past. We were thinking, „Don‟t mess this up!‟ “We had practiced some great sprints, so we still felt we could get the Romanians, but then we also could feel the coming on. “Knowing that we were all going to sprint all out with 250 meters to go and hav- ing the goal of changing the color of the medal really helped. “We crossed the line and I did not know how we finished. I had the feeling that we might have gotten Bronze. “It took me a while to actually get it out, but I called up to Mary [Whipple, the coxs- wain] and asked, „What did we get?‟ “She told me Silver.”7642

1 ROM 6:17.70 2 USA 6:19.56 3 NED 6:19.85 4 CHI 6:21.71 5 GER 6:21.99 6 AUS 6:31.65

USOC Postscript Tom Terhaar After Athens, Tom Terhaar again fo- cused his attention to small boat rowing as a “The final was the most nervous I‟ve new generation of athletes came to the fore. been in my life, which is saying a lot. Lianne Nelson took some time off and Usually for me the nerves go away when we spoke of returning in time for Beijing in start the warm-up or stretching or whatever, 2008. It never happened. but what surprised me this time was they Results started coming again in 2006 didn‟t go away until we actually started the with Gold in the eight and Bronze in the race, until I had so much pain in my legs coxless-four. Anna Mickelson, who started that I couldn‟t think about it. so poorly in a pair, won and placed “We got off to a great start. Our first fourth at the Worlds in a coxless-pair with 500 was good, the field still basically Megan Cooke. straight across at the 1,000, everybody right In 2007, it was Gold in the eight and there. As Romania started to pull away, ob- Gold in the coxless-four. Mickelson and viously we tried to counter that and give it Portia McGee won the petite final in the everything that we had. pair. “As they snuck out, we crossed the last In 2008, the U.S. won Olympic Eights 500 meters, and it was now-or-never time. Gold with 2004 members Anna Mickelson Everybody was right there. You could feel Cummins and Caryn Davies still on board. them. We were in second, but we could still get first or we could get fifth, like we‟ve 7642 Mickelson, op cit.

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The team made it four in a row in the a bad start in rough water to take Bronze. eight in 2009 while Susan Francia and The team also won another Gold in the eight doubled up and also won the in 2010 as well as Silver and Bronze in the coxless-pair, something that used to be done coxless-four in 2009 and 2010, nearly regularly only by Romania7643 and by matching the record of Canada in 1991 and McBean and Heddle of Canada.7644 1992.7645 In 2010, Francia and Cafaro rallied from

7643 See Chapter 152. 7644 See Chapter 134. 7645 Ibid.

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157. Déjà Vu

Brian Volpenhein – Bill Stowe – Lianne Nelson

Placing Bryan Volpen- hein, Bill Stowe and Lianne Nelson side by side, there is very little difference in their fundamental boat moving techniques. All three accelerated the boat all the way to the finish. Legs and backs were coordi- nated and moved smoothly and steadily from entry to release. Back angles at both ends of the pullthrough were comparable. Only in arm draw is there a stylistic difference between the three. All three used their arms from the entry, but Bill‟s arms visibly broke earlier than his 2004 counterparts. This was unintended by Bill‟s Olympic coach, Allen Rosenberg,7646 who coached his athletes to set the blade FISA 2004 DVD Tokyo O.C. FISA 2004 DVD with extended arms and shoulders to ensure that the Three Olympic Strokes arms would begin the stroke Bryan Volpenhein, Bill Stowe, Lianne Nelson perfectly straight. All three agree on leg drive. All three agree on back swing. Bill Stowe: “I was taught Volpenhein and Nelson agree on arm motion later than Stowe. [by Cornell Coach Stork All three accelerate entry-to-release. 7647 Sanford ] that with a bro- Volpenhein: +10°, +20° to -35°, 0-8, 0-10, 0-10 ken-arm catch every muscle Stowe: +5° +25° to -25°, 0-8, 0-10, 0-10 in your body is working, and Nelson: +5°,+25° to -35°, 0-8, 0-10, 0-10 that is important. Think of a karate person breaking bricks with his

7646 hands. If every muscle is not tensed he will See Chapter 108. break his hand. You want to get every part 7647 See Chapter 70.

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THE WORLD COMES FULL CIRCLE of the body fully stressed as you come Nelson: “I feel connected, I feel the through the oar being perpendicular to the weight there, and I feel I can bend them boat. Everything must be focused on the whenever I want, but I hold off bending drive of the oar, and nothing can overwhelm them until pretty late.”7650 or be lax. The 1964 Vesper Boat Crew, combining “Relax totally on the recovery and sneak the influences of Philadelphia‟s Boathouse up to the next explosive catch!!!! Times Row with oarsmen from Cornell and Yale may change – old people and old ways steeped in the Conibear Legacy, became the don‟t.”7648 last great crew of the first Golden Age of American Rowing. In a sense, on this point Volpenhein and Having recaptured the spirit of that Gol- Nelson row the Rosenberg Style more faith- den Age by combining sensitive coaching, fully than Bill Stowe did forty years earlier. superbly talented and dedicated athletes and Volpenhein: “My arms are engaged the two strokes blessed with unique boat- whole time I‟m driving the legs, but if you moving abilities, perhaps the 2004 U.S. hang on the arms as long as you can when Olympic Eights can become the vanguard of you‟re swinging and not break them till the a new Golden Age of American Rowing. very end, that will help you keep the accele- ration.”7649

7648 Stowe, personal conversation, 2005 7649 Volpenhein, op cit. 7650 Nelson, op cit.

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