THE SPORT OF ROWING To the readers of www.row2k.com As we begin the New Year, I am happy ments, additional sources or illustrations, if to announce that all four volumes of my you would like to add your own perspective, book, the culmination of seven years of re- etc. please email me at the address below. search, will be available for purchase on this Your input represents an essential contribu- website in October of 2011. Details will be tion to what has always been intended to be forthcoming in the coming months. a joint project of the rowing community, so please contribute. If you and I end up final- This latest excerpt on row2k is the third ly disagreeing on some relevant point or of five that touch on the women’s rowing in another, I will be thrilled to present both the 1970s, 1980s and beyond. alternatives so the readers can decide for The subject of this draft chapter is wom- themselves. en’s rowing at the 1984 Olympics, a fasci- nating competition partly because it did not Incidentally, many thanks to all who include the teams from GDR and the Soviet wrote to thank me and to make corrections Union. and add comments, photos, anecdotes, etc. to the recent postings on the 1984 U.S. The following .pdf is in the format in- men’s scullers and on Ted Nash. Drafts tended for the final printed book. It is from with all the updates are now posted for you the fourth of four volumes. on row2k. I need you! All my contact info is at my website. Or you can email me anytime at: If you find any typos in this chapter, or [email protected]. if you have any questions, comments, sug- gestions, corrections, agreements, disagree- Many thanks. TThhee SSppoorrtt ooff RRoowwiinngg AA CCoommpprreehheennssiivvee HHiissttoorryy bbyy PPeetteerr MMaalllloorryy VVoolluummee IIVV PPlluuss ÇÇaa CChhaannggee ddrraafffttt mmaannuussccrriiippttt JJaannuuaarryy 22001111 THE SPORT OF ROWING 148. Women in the 1980s Romania – USA – 1984 Olympics FISA 1984 Video Romanian Single Sculler Valeria Roşca-Răcilă , 5‟9” 176 cm 163 lb. 74 kg 1984 Olympic Champion, Lake Casitas 0°, +35° to -25°, 0-8, 0-10, 0-10 Classical Technique Hybrid-concurrent Kernschlag Elegant pendulum backswing Very strong drive to send at finish. During the 1980s, the polarization accomplished no political goal. The 1984 between the Classical Technique and Los Angeles Olympics were then marred by Modern Orthodoxy also played itself out in a tit-for-tat Soviet boycott, equally pointless, women‟s rowing, with Eastern Bloc squads equally hurtful to athletes on both sides. on the one hand and some but not all The rowers most missed in L.A. were Western crews on the other. the GDR and the Soviet women, who The 1980 Olympics in Moscow had between them had won seventeen of the been cruelly undermined by a United States- eighteen Gold Medals awarded in the led boycott which punished all athletes and previous three years. However, the GDR 2060 THE ERA OF POLARIZATION FISA 1984 Video Romanian Women’s Eight Stroke Lucia Sauca 5‟10” 179 cm 172 lb. 78 kg 1984 Olympic Silver Medal, Lake Casitas -5°, +45° to -15°, 0-8, 0-10, 4-10 Classical Technique Hybrid-concurrent Kernschlag Awkward catch position. Not pretty, just effective. women‟s eight had lost to the United States women medaled in five of the six women‟s both days in Luzern earlier in the summer of events. In the three years leading up to the 1984, substantially increasing the credibility 1984 Los Angeles Games, they only missed of the results on Lake Casitas, in the hills two of eighteen finals, winning eleven east of Santa Barbara, California. medals, one Gold, three Silver and seven Bronze. Romania During that same period, GDR also won eleven medals, five Gold, four Silver and During the 1970s, frustrated at two Bronze, while the Soviets won an perennially finishing behind the Soviets and astonishing sixteen medals in eighteen events, an incredible twelve Gold, two GDR in international sport, the Romanian 7196 Government instituted a well-funded Silver and two Bronze. program to create world-class athletes, Perhaps it was continuing frustration including a major effort in women‟s rowing. that led the Romanians to defy the Soviet- The level of government commitment was led Olympic boycott and send their Olympic similar to that of the GDR Sports System teams to Los Angeles. during the same period.7195 By the end of the decade, at the 1979 The Romanian 1984 Olympic squad was World Rowing Championships in Bled, led by single sculler Valeria Roşca-Răcilă , Yugoslavia [now Slovenia], Romanian 7196 Between 1981 and 1983, U.S. women won 7195 See Chapter 119. six medals, four Silver and two Bronze. THE SPORT OF ROWING 5‟9” 176 lb. 163 lb. 74 kg, a worthy Romanian athletes was based on sculling, successor to 5‟9” 176 cm 165 lb. 75 kg and so it was no surprise that they excelled Romanian Sanda Toma, World and in the sculling events on Lake Casitas. Olympic Champion from 1979 through 1981. Romanian athletes also brought their Roşca-Răcilă had won double sculls training and discipline and their sculling- Bronze in 1979 and 1980 with partner Olga trained athletes to sweep events, but their Bularda-Homeghi 5‟9” 174 cm 161 lb. 73 body movements as sweep rowers tended to kg, stroke of the 1984 Olympic Gold Medal be a bit less elegant, a characteristic which coxed-four, and then switched to the single has persisted into the 21st Century. in 1982 when Toma retired. She placed The Romanian four and eight rowed second by one inch at the Worlds in 1982 with impeccable bladework, sometimes and then failed to finish the 1983 final when awkward posture but very effective leg drive her oarlock collapsed. and body swing and send to the boat. On Lake Casitas in 1984 Roşca-Răcilă won by open water. In 1985, she won Silver 1984 U.S. Sweep Rowers and then retired to join her husband, Dutch canoeist Steven van Groningen. American woman sweep rowers represented the other side of the Classical- Romanian training was founded on Modern Orthodox divide. When American mileage, as many as three sessions a day of legislation popularly known as Title IX was “long slow distance” or LSD training which 7197 passed requiring parity of funding between originated in GDR. male and female athletes on university Kelly Mitchell, coxswain of the 1984 campuses, colleges began turning out U.S. women‟s coxed-quad: “We would row increasing numbers of talented female a heat, then go back down for ten or fifteen athletes. minutes and come in. We noticed that the Kris Korzeniowski had left the U.S. in Romanians would go out for another hour of 1981 after coaching the National Women‟s rowing. They had a really long warm up Team for four years, Kris‟s influence and a really long warm down, noticeably 7198 continued in the persona of University of different from any other team there.” Washington coach Bob Ernst. Bob had begun his coaching career with Their race tactics were also similar to the men at the University of California at GDR: set a withering pace in the first 500, Irvine. In 1974, his varsity nearly upset the and pull away as others wilted during the Washington Huskies in the Western Sprint second 500. Championships. Shortly thereafter, Bob was Valeria Roşca-Răcilă sculled in the hired as freshman coach at the UW. Classical Technique with strong legs and an After Title IX, Bob became the elegant pendulum backswing. Washington Women‟s Coach, and what The Romanian women‟s double and followed were six championships for the quad showed the same level of finesse as Husky women. “It would have been seven, they also captured Olympic Gold in 1984. but those darn Wisconsin women snuck in With no long-standing tradition in sweep one year! They were sensational, and I rowing, development and training of ended up wanting them all on my National Teams.”7199 7197 See Chapter 119. 7198 Mitchell, personal conversation, 2006 7199 Ernst, personal conversation, 2005 2062 THE ERA OF POLARIZATION Bob Ernst 1984 United States Women’s Eight 3 Carol Bower 5‟8” 172 cm 163 lb. 74 kg at low stroke, steady state Hanover, New Hampshire -5°, +40° to -30°, 0-6, 0-9, 4-10 Modern Orthodox Technique, Schubschlag In practice, Coach Ernst had them working on exaggerated back swing and acceleration to the finish in order to eliminate front-end Kernschlag. Curtis Jordan, Princeton women‟s Force Application coach for seven years and men‟s coach for nineteen: “Bob is one of those kinds of guys Much as it had been for Harry Parker at who understood what Korzeniowski was the National Women‟s Selection Camps of teaching, was able to develop and actually 1975 and 1976, the approach to force made a system out of it. Lori Dauphiny application for the athletes who greeted the rowed for Bob at the UW, and when she U.S. National Coaches was Modern started coaching the women here at Orthodox Kernschlag, the American norm. Princeton, she had a very particular way of As had been the case for a decade, the teaching people how to row with long athlete pool in the run-up to 1984 contained layback. It was very clear when you saw a healthy dose of Wisconsin Badger blood. one of Laurie‟s crews. You could see it, and Wisconsin crews of the era, both men and there was a genesis that went right back to 7200 women, were especially well known for Korzeniowski!” Rosenberg sequentiality and post-Rosenberg explosive Kernschlag, and given their severe 7200 Jordan, personal conversation, 2006 THE SPORT OF ROWING climate, they made up for lack of water time 1983 with pure determination.