The Weather ? Reflecting Back on 1964 and Forward to Athens

Water at Schinias for the Junior Champs 2003
© Getty Images/Jamie McDonald

Ever since last year’s Olympic test regatta, the 2003 Junior World Rowing Championships in Athens, speculation on the wind conditions for the Olympic Games abound. The words of FISA’s president Denis Oswald have been ringing ever since; ?rowing is an outdoor sport.?

Weather conditions at the Schinias regatta course in Athens last August were predominantly strong tail winds with waves and, although it is impossible to predict this year’s weather, one thing is for certain, crews need to be prepared to adapt to the conditions.

Conditions, however, have always been an issue. Even the Olympic Games cannot influence the rowing gods when it comes to prayers for flat water and no one knows this better than the rowers on finals day of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

The day is still embedded in the minds of those involved from athletes through to coaches and spectators. Water conditions got to the stage that FISA’s then president, Thomas Keller, suspended racing to wait for better water in the evening. That evening spectators were treated to a racing course bathed in the headlights from cars while the army sent off flares for added light.

The final for the men’s eight was raced in the evening. The German eight were the favourites.  However, the adaptations of the United States crew paid off. Germany could not achieve their usual high stroke rate. The longer, lower rating, Americans won by five seconds, ending a German winning streak.

Allen Rosenberg, coach of the United States winning men’s eight in 1964 remembers the day like it was yesterday and has been involved in ongoing discussions about the fairness of the racing ever since. The final of the men ?s eight was to be the showdown between Germany’s ?Ratzeburg? eight, coached by the legendary head of the Ratzeburg Academy, Karl Adams and Rosenburg’s US team. Ratzeburg crews had been dominating the eight’s scene since 1959 and had won Olympic gold at the 1960 Rome Olympics. In 1964 Rosenberg needed an edge.

Unlike many coaches of his day Rosenberg was willing adapt his rowers to weather conditions. When finals day opened with strong head winds and rough water Rosenburg looked into possible options.

?We made no changes to style except to encourage the men to lay back longer into the bow in a head wind and, conversely, sit up straighter at the finish in a tail wind,? says Rosenberg. 

?The only gearing change we made was for the oars.? Rosenberg reduced the length of the oars by about one centimetre to make the ?load? lighter. ?The trick is to make the right assessment as to the amount of wind,? says Rosneberg. On that final day in Tokyo Rosenberg’s assessment was correct. ?We left the docking area as close as possible to race time,? says Rosenberg, ?hoping the wind would stay the same.?

Another feature of the Tokyo regatta course was concreted sides that caused waves to bounce off the walls and back on to the rowing course. This provided constant hull resistance. Rosenberg noted that the expected boat speed of his eight had dropped during pre-Olympic training. ?The crew was adjusting their energy to the slower speeds and not executing their style properly,? says Rosenberg. ?The only remedy it seemed to me was to get out of there!?

Rosenberg moved his crew to train on flatter water for the final days before the Olympics.

From Rosenberg’s experience, although he has not seen the Athens course, he suggests an emphasis be placed on blade work detail with some room made in adjusting the boats to provide for better releases enabling the rower to clear the water on the recovery. Rosenberg also pictures a bigger blade surface to help catch the wind on the recovery ? in anticipation of tail wind conditions. 

This year most coaches are keeping quiet about their plans for Athens, although Andreas Maul who coaches Germany’s top single sculler, Marcel Hacker admits, ?we are doing some special things for Athens (to the boat).?

He will say no more.