Golden moments: Rowing eight

It remains New Zealand’s most memorable Olympic medal ceremony.

Eight hulking rowers - and diminutive coxswain Simon Dickie - stood lake-side at Feldmoching in their black shorts and singlets.

After the gold medals were placed around the necks of the Kiwi crew and the New Zealand flag was raised, ‘‘God Defend New Zealand’’ was played for the first time at an Olympics.

At previous Games, ‘‘God Save The Queen’’ was played as the national anthem.

So something deeply and uniquely New Zealand resonated about these victors.

With Dickie yelling commands, the oarsmen — Trevor Coker, Athol Earl, John Hunter, Tony Hurt, Dick Joyce, Gary Robertson, Wybo Veldman and Lindsay Wilson — produced a superlative display and never looked like being headed by silver medalists East Germany and third-placed United States.

‘‘I think it’s been widely reported, and I think it’s pretty much the dynamic of the individuals that were in that crew, ‘‘ he said.

‘‘It was an extraordinary combination of minds that were singularly aimed at achieving a common goal, which was to win.

‘‘I mean, if you asked me how did all that happen, I think a huge amount of credit has to go to the selectors - at that time, Fred Strachan, Don Rowlands - and Rusty Robertson the coach.

‘‘They were the guys that put the nine individuals together. They left it to Rusty to train that crew.

‘‘It was an extraordinary dynamic of individuals.

‘‘So it wasn’t just having the physical skills to achieve success, but it was actually having the mental capacity to drive through that barrier of not only wanting it, but doing whatever it took to achieve it.

‘‘There’s a lot of mental factors that came into play to achieve that result.’’

Physically, they also had to be at their peak to beat an East German crew that competed in an era when the country’s leading sportspeople were part of a systemic state doping programme.

‘‘Subsequently of course, we’ve learnt that there was a significant amount of enhancement to their performance by way of what we would now commonly call cheating,’’ Dickie said of their major rivals.

So there was plenty of symbolism in New Zealand’s triumph.

‘‘It was a bit of a watershed Olympics, 1972, ‘‘ Dickie said.

‘‘Avery Brundage was still head of the IOC. He was a great advocate of amateur sport as opposed to professional sport.

‘‘I think he was certainly cognisant that there were things going on inside the Eastern countries that were tilting the playing field in their favour. They were using sport as a political tool, which he knew there was an inevitability about that - but he didn’t agree with the way they were achieving their results.

‘‘So when we won, we gave him cause to celebrate his viewpoints. You didn’t actually need to be a professional, you didn’t need to be a cheat - you could be just a wholesome bunch of guys.

‘‘That was the last Olympic race that was ever won in a wooden boat.’’