‘Joie de vivre’ for South Africa’s lightweight four

Most eyes were not focused on the South Africans, instead most had been trained on three other boats – the Danes, hoping to defend their Olympic title, the home favourites Great Britain and the Australian reigning World Champions. But as the South African head coach Roger Barrow and lead coach of the four Paul Jackson followed the race on their bicycles, their eyes were firmly fixed on the green and yellow suited crew.

At the finish the crew paused. They had just achieved the first ever Olympic rowing gold for South Africa. As the crew sat in their boat enjoying the moment little did they realise that a storm had erupted in South Africa. The nation, buoyed by the gold medal result was going wild in a way normally reserved for their national rugby team.

“We were completely blown away,” says Barrow. “The crew had been on the front page of every paper in the country.” And on their return the interest had not diminished.

“There was massive media interest at the airport when we got back to South Africa. There were thousands of people at the airport; we needed a police escort,” says Barrow disbelievingly. “The media interest in the guys is ongoing. It hasn’t stopped.”

“We brought the airport to a standstill,” adds Smith, the youngest member of the crew at age 22 and otherwise known as Bean. “I could not believe the amount of people.”

The crew has since made numerous celebrity television appearances and their medals have accompanied them. Ndlovu can list Miss Earth, Top Billing and SuperSport not to mention racing Ferraris for a TV show.

“My neck was so chafed from the strap that I think it nearly bled,” says Brittain. “I wore my medal for a night and my neck has not been the same since!” adds Smith.

The crew were given safety deposit boxes for their medals but Brittain admits it hasn’t spent much time there. “People are so excited to see it that I usually just keep it in my pocket so that if they ask to see it I can show them. I don’t really see the point of keeping it in pristine condition locked away somewhere.”

This fairytale Olympic ending, however, may have been hard to envisage during the lead up to London.

Barrow explains: “My plan has been to develop a lightweight men’s four ever since 2009. I decided that in the lightweight men’s double we were too far off the pace. In 2010 I approached Paul (about coaching the four) as he’s much more experienced. He became involved as the lead coach of the boat.”

The pool of rowers started as eight and ended up as six with the final crew selecting itself because of injuries. “Matthew had to have surgery in 2010, then Lawrence had a problem of tendonitis in his wrist,” explains Barrow. The most experienced member of the crew, Ndlovu, has had to battle illness and injury throughout his rowing career. As well as needing an operation for tendonitis Ndlovu was diagnosed with asthma 10 years ago and has also had back problems.

The Olympic line-up was only formed six months before London. The crew then raced at the Memorial D’Aloja in Italy where they won all of their races. The line-up was thus set.

Barrow designed the preparation for London to be as problem-free as possible. He thus set a number of training camps not only for the training but to also keep them away from other people and the potential for illness and to monitor their training to reduce the chance of injury.

As the crew were all first-time Olympians, Barrow and Jackson were very much aware of the pressure the four would be under. Jackson talked to the crew about ‘joie de vivre’.

“He would say, ‘don’t take yourself too seriously’,” explains Smith. “To us it meant, let’s get out and go have some fun.”

“The Olympics is a circus attached to a normal regatta,” says Brittain. “It was still 2,000m long and against the usual opposition so I didn’t make it bigger than that. But that didn’t stop me from nearly throwing up in the bus from nerves every time we arrived at the venue.”

For the final each crew member experienced the race in their own unique way.

“I always knew we had a chance (to medal),” says Brittain. “It was the greatest moment of my life to look up at the scoreboard and see ‘1. RSA’.”

“Coming into the last 100m, Matthew behind me was screaming, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ I thought to myself we have this thing by half a length, but after watching the race later it was on the line,” says Smith who will never forget feeling like a god at the end of the race.

“I knew we had a chance at getting a medal,” says Ndlovu who attributes his start in rowing to his mentor and former principal, the late Tom Price. “When we came into the last 500m I believed we were going to get gold.”

“We knew they had a good sprint,” says Barrow. “Going into the 1,000m we thought that they could medal if they were within a length of the leaders.” At the 1,000m mark the crew were within a length and, in fourth place, they were closing on the leaders. The joie de vivre had kicked in.

The impact of the results of these four men in South Africa has been phenomenal. “The number of 13 to 14 year olds has tripled at rowing schools,” says Barrow. The four all plan to keep rowing.

Earning a gold medal also earned each of the crew a traditional South African gift – a cow. Smith and Thompson chose to turn their cows into ‘biltong’ – dried beef strips. “It’s a lot of meat,” says Smith. Ndlovu has named his cow Missy and he plans to keep her and have more.  Brittain has called his cow London and plans to barbeque her in a couple of years, “hopefully after she has had a couple of calves,” he adds.