Rowers at war as star says Grobler ‘destroyed our souls’

BRITISH rowing tore itself apart yesterday in the most toxic olympic bust-up of recent history, with legendary coach Jurgen Grobler accused of ‘destroying the souls’ of his athletes. the infighting broke out after the sport’s worst Games performance in 45 years, with Grobler and the tough culture he stood for at the centre of the intense dispute. east German Grobler, the most successful coach in olympic sport, was forced out of the team last August after 30 years in control. the new high command at british Rowing, under chief executive Andy parkinson, want to adopt a more sensitive ethos, a controversial policy that has turned crewmate on crewmate. the regatta finished with britain 14th in the medal table — below ireland and Greece — with just one silver in the men’s quad and a bronze collected by the men’s eight in the final race. it was the team’s lowest ebb since the Montreal olympics in 1976, despite £24.6million of lottery funding over the past five years, the largest sum spent on any sport in tokyo. in contrast, britain was the most successful rowing nation at beijing, london and Rio.

Pointedly staying behind to speak to a few journalists when his fellow members of the eight had walked away at the Sea Forest Waterway, bowman Josh bugajski accused Grobler and his uncompromising regime of making his life unbearable. the 30-year-old said: ‘i’m going to be brave and say something that the crew don’t want me to say. i cracked open a bottle of champagne when Jurgen retired. i had three very dark years under him. And i think i’d be a coward if i didn’t say that on behalf of the guys who are stuck at home, because they got a darker side of Jurgen and they aren’t in the team. ‘there were some people he just seemed to take a disliking to. What he did to them was just destroy them — destroy their soul, destroy everything they had. He had complete power.’ but bugajski’s colleagues defended Grobler, 75 today, against the withering criticism. Moe Sbihi, a gold medallist in the eight at Rio 2016, dedicated the bronze to his former coach on his birthday. He said: ‘He’s a winner, a notorious winner, and he has bred winners. Jurgen knew how to elevate people. He is someone who p ***** me off as much as made me really happy.’ two more of the bronze medallists were aghast when told of bugajski’s searing comments. tom George, who rowed in the three seat, said: ‘to say he destroys the soul of people is pretty damning of a man who created the legacy for not only our sport but team Gb. it’s pretty unfair and out of place.’ oliver Wynne-Griffith, the six man, was asked if bugajski’s view was widely shared. ‘i would say within our crew 100 per cent Josh is a lone voice,’ he said. ‘Jurgen created british rowing to be the powerhouse it is today.’

Vicky thornley, who was fourth in the single

sculls yesterday after winning a gold medal in the double sculls four years ago, also stuck up for Grobler, saying: ‘He was a great mentor my whole career. I am grateful for his advice. I still hear his voice in my head.’ Grobler’s supporters have pointed out that Bugajski was dropped from the Oxford boat a few days before the 2018 Boat Race owing to ‘illness’ and is seen by some in rowing circles as a maverick. Performance director Brendan Purcell said: ‘If you look purely at medals, we had a four-medal target. We didn’t meet our own expectations. We can’t hide from that.’ He added: ‘For people to explore their limits needs a balance between support and challenge. For every individual, that’s a difficult mix to find. Some people thrive on challenge. Some don’t. I don’t think we always got that balance quite right.’