Bereft SA rowers are going for broke
Olympic lightweight fours champions not resting on their laurels as they prepare for European trip
LITTLE has changed for SA’s Olympic champion rowers.
The lightweight fours team’s stunning triumph at London 2012 has not given them the luxury to take it easier on the water.
They return to international competition for the first time this weekend at the Henley Regatta in England, followed by the Lucerne leg of the World Cup series the following weekend.
“A new dynamic is having Olympic champions in the squad,” says head coach Roger Barrow. The solution, he insists, is to treat everyone the same — each rower fights to keep his seat in the boat.
“That pressure always has to be there to keep them honest,” says Barrow, who is working to get more crews to the podium at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.
While the rowers have enjoyed some limelight for their London success, and do motivational talks for some much-needed extra income, Barrow has also put a limit on such extramural activities.
“I’ve told them there’s a limit to how many they can do in a month.”
It may sound like a harsh decision, but that’s the way the rowers like it.
“We are at our fastest after we have worked our hardest, we’ve never gone faster with less training,” says James Thompson, one of the three survivors from London.
Matt Brittain, nursing a back injury that is likely to keep him out the boat until next year, has been replaced by Mike Voerman. John Smith is still there, as is Sizwe Ndlovu, recently returned from a wrist injury.
Barrow gets the Olympic champs to race against his other boats, unleashing them on the green-tinged water of Roodeplaat Dam, near Pretoria.
They start at different times, with the fours going last to transform this into a competitive race — a few times almost every day.
There’s an understudy four and two men’s pairs, both of which will also compete in Europe. Barrow plays Lego with the crews. The two men’s pairs teams, for example, might yet find themselves teamed into a heavyweight fours crew. “But I don’t have any back-ups for them at this stage. That means there would be no threat to their seats and they would get complacent,” he explains.
The younger pair of David Hunt and Vincent Breet, a student at Harvard where he became the first freshman to make the senior eights crew, are headed to the under-23 world championships in Austria next month. There, they will attempt to maintain a proud SA tradition of men’s pairs medals since 2007, in either the lightweight or heavyweight classes.
For the next two weekends in Europe they will line up against the other duo of 2008 Olympian Shaun Keeling and Lawrence Brittain.
Single sculler Ursula Grobler, who completes the SA line-up for Europe, has been training alongside Kirsten McCann, a medal prospect at the World Student Games in Russia, and Kate Johnson.
In another Lego move, Grobler and McCann are the likely candidates for a women’s lightweight doubles crew at the senior world championships in Korea in late August.
Money remains tight in SA rowing, with sponsors still shy to dip in.
The SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) bought them three new boats in Italy, but now they must speak to government to negotiate a reduction on massive import duties.
They have a similar problem with 16 oars given to them by an overseas benefactor. They are sitting at customs, says Barrow, who hasn’t had a salary increase since 2008.
“My motivation at the beginning was not money,” he adds. “I’m not going to change that now.”