Each September 24, give or take a day or two, nine men gather to celebrate a
remarkable triumph. Sometimes they are not sure why they do it or what
exactly they are celebrating. Two of the crew still don’t talk to each other
and their reunion banter always has an edge. But, like all great teams, mere
eye contact is enough.
This is the story of the British Eight in Sydney 2000, the crew that time
forgot. It was their misfortune to win the gold less than 24 hours after the
Redgrave Four had secured their place in history. Some journalists did not
make it back to the lake the following morning, no matter what they say now,
but the British Eight had been performing well enough to be worth one more
early morning and, after gold for Redgrave and company and an equally
historic silver for the women’s quad, a strange sort of magic had settled
over the Penrith rowing lake.
In the lead-up to the Olympics, the British Eight had been quick and
competitive, but not gold medallists, not unless someone else - the
Australians or the Americans - had an off day. They were strong and
powerful, but lacked the emotional intensity of a great crew. A lacklustre
performance in the heat had done nothing to inspire confidence, though they
had qualified for the repechage. The late Harry Mahon, one of their coaches,
perfectly summarised the indifference of their row. “Boys,” he said,
pointing to the horizon, “the dressage event is over there.”
In the boat, Luka Grubor knew Mahon was right. The first stroke was weak and
the rest of the race lacklustre. However, that night as they watched a
replay they saw how pleased the Australians were to beat them and how close
they were to winning. “What Harry meant was that we were just a bunch of
little soft kids, that we were too well brought up, too concentrated on the
technique and not enough on ‘Who needs this most’,” says Grubor. “We had the
speed but not the heroics. We didn’t believe in heroic performances. Then we
saw it on the video. We weren’t racing, we were just rowing along. That was
the catalyst. We had to say out loud, ‘We’re here to kill everyone’.”
To help the process, coach Martin McElroy came up with the idea of “the box”.
Every day, the crew put an emotional jewel into it. It might be something to
do with family or friends, it might be a personal loss or a mere irritation,
any reason to win was accepted. A piece in an American newspaper saying the
Americans only had to turn up to win went in the box and every training
session, the box was opened just a little to release the full force of this
new-found commitment.
One further incident, perversely, brought the crew closer to their target. At
the end of one of their final sessions, as the British Eight rowed past the
main stand, rival coaches were astonished to see six men rowing and two -
Andrew Lindsay and Ben Hunt-Davis - fighting. “The other coaches were
thinking, ‘Great, the Brits have gone’,” says Hunt-Davis. “But our coaches
were thinking, ‘Thank God, they’re angry’.” The Eight duly qualified from
the repechage. On the eve of the final, Hunt-Davis sat in the team’s flat
with tears streaming down his face. They had watched Redgrave win his fifth
gold, but as much motivation came from the desolation of Greg Searle and Ed
Coode, who finished fourth in the pair. They knew then how much they wanted
gold, how much they wanted to establish their own identity as a crew, away
from the enveloping hype of Redgrave’s record fifth gold, and how much they
feared failure. They had a motto: today’s a good day because I’m going to
make it a good day.
“I was worried the guys might think I’d cracked,” says Hunt-Davis. “But I
wanted it so much I could taste it. We devised this crazy race plan to give
it everything we had and then keep adding to it. I was sure if we got it
right, nobody could beat us. But how brave were we?”
Grubor felt the same. He remembered the last piece the Eight did in their
final training session before Sydney. Their training camp had been average,
but with barely 200m to row to the pontoon, everything clicked. On the
morning of the final, the Eight went through their warm-up. “We did a piece
flat out,” says Grubor. “I thought, ‘If the Aussies or the Americans saw
that, they know they’ve lost’. Then I remember the first stroke of the final
itself, really clean and strong.”
The night before their race, Tim Foster slipped back into the squad’s shared
flat. Grubor couldn’t see the gold medal, but he saw the ribbon hanging
round Foster’s neck. As he went out, closing the door, Foster nodded and
winked. The Eight had to win gold too. On the start line, cox Rowley Douglas
had a simple message. Mahon had been diagnosed with terminal cancer a few
months before. The race was for him. “We knew that the crew which led at
100m pretty well always won the race,” said Douglas. “So we just had to
blast it and get out in front.” By halfway, the British crew had put clear
water between them and Croatia. Now they had to dispose of the Australians
and their punishing finish. “They really came at us in the last 400m but we
just kept ramping it up. They were never going to beat us.”
As the British boat rowed back for the medal ceremony, Louis Attrill told the
crew to sing.
Of the 15 members of the British squad in the crew flat, 13 returned home with
gold. Greg Searle had a gold from Barcelona and Ed Coode went on to win his
in Athens in the Pinsent Four. But no sooner had the crew celebrated on the
pontoon than they went their separate ways. Four of them rowed their last
competitive stroke that day; only Kieran West carried on through the next
Olympic cycle. Grubor rowed on for two years. Hunt-Davis rowed in many crews
during his nine years in the international squad. “People don’t have to like
each other, but we had trust in each other and that’s what we’re
celebrating,” he says.
1 Ben Hunt-Davis Retired from rowing after Sydney and now runs Point8,
a company specialising in leadership development.
2 Andrew Lindsay Retired from rowing after Sydney. Ran Ryness, an
electrical company, and now works for Telecom Plus, a utility company, based
in London.
3 Fred Scarlett Works for Krug champagne in Paris.
4 Louis Attrill Qualified as a solicitor and now works in his family
construction business and lives on the Isle of Wight. No longer rows.
5 Luka Grubor Retired from rowing after Sydney and now runs his own
travel company, Sail Croatia, in London.
6 Rowley Douglas Coxed for one year after Sydney. Now works in
commercial finance in London.
7 Simon Dennis Head of rowing at Shiplake College. Competed at Veterans
Henley last week.
8 Steve Trapmore Rowing career ended by a back injury two years after
Sydney. Worked as an IT consultant before becoming head of rowing at
Imperial College. Lives in Kingston. Still rows when needed.
9 Kieran West Only member of Sydney crew to compete in Athens.
Perennial member of Light Blue Boat Race crew and now completing a PhD in
Military History at Cambridge. Still rows for Imperial.
