Times Globe - Sports Week Monday, September 25, 2000

Ed Winchester - Olympic Diary

With week one of the Sydney Olympics over, the Moose Lodge in downtown Sydney's Darling Harbour is becoming the de facto headquarters for Canadian athletes.

They serve Canadian beer and fly the Maple Leaf-and if you can stand long lineups, you'll be hanging alongside first-week athletes, Toronto 2008 bid committee team members and the legions of drunk Australians.

It was there I got to hear what happened to the lightweight men's four.

Two-seat Chris Davidson was wearing the dark-khaki COA jacket and talking a mile-a-minute to a Toronto bid member at the edge of the dance floor. Chris and I have trained and raced alongside each other for the past five seasons, but this was the First time I'd really talked with him since we left training camp in northern Australia two-and-a-half weeks ago.

After being relegated to the petite-finals following a heart-wrenching semi final loss for the final qualifying spot to South Africa, Chris and the four returned the next day determined to make one final statement for the season. Unlike the semi, they came blasting out of the gates and did what they wanted to but couldn't 24 hours earlier. They led the entire way down the course.

Like the heavyweight men's fight and men's pair, the Lightweight four was petite-final winners, ended the 2000 Olympics in seventh spot. Even Derek Porter, considered a lock for a medal in the men's single, was frozen out of the medals by a 23-year-old German sculler.

We were witnessing the collapse of Canadian men's rowing.

"If we were really a seventh-place crew, I could live with that," said the animated Davidson. "I said that if we had to keep relying on these erotic sprints, sooner or later they'd come back to bite us."

"I can't believe I predicted our downfall."

Like our coach Volker and the rest of the guys in the crew, Chris didn't have a good explanation for what happened. They went out on the water intending to do one thing, but failed to execute.

He said Volker had never received so much positive feedback on how his crew was moving together. I told them my impression of the race was that they'd rowed nicely.

"Yeah, exactly," fired Davidson. "We rowed nicely. That was the problem."

From looking at the split sheet and race tape, it looked as though the Canadians were lacking aggression in the top 500 metres. When it came time to sprint, they weren't set up enough to successfully play catch-up. Their final 500 was two seconds faster than any boat in the field. It shows they didn't give enough in the middle of the race.

This wasn't simply an isolated case with one of our crews. The entire Canadian Olympic rowing team struggled to establish a quick pace off the starting line. With the exception of a gritty bronze from the Canadian women's eight, no other Canadian crews reached the medal podium. The rowers used to be the backbone of the medal count at the summer Olympics.

So now what? The guys in our program were looking to win a medal and then wash their hands of the whole international rowing lifestyle. But because they under-performed here in Sydney, I'd put money on them coming back for the next quadrennial.

Even still, there are no guarantees it will play out any better.

"What can we do differently next time?" wondered three-seat Gavin Hassett.

Looking a little defeated but relieved to be done, they both turned and faced me. "Feeling any pressure, Ed?"