rowing

“Swing” – The Danish Coxless Fours Found It, and Gold, in Tokyo

Left to right - Bjørn Borgen Hasløv, Kurt Helmudt, Erik Petersen and John Ørsted Hansen_gold medal coxless fours 1964
Left to right – Bjørn Borgen Hasløv, Kurt Helmudt, Erik Petersen and John Ørsted Hansen_gold medal coxless fours 1964

The coxless fours from Denmark were champions. While they won their heat quite handily, finishing more than five seconds ahead of their closest competition, the championship race was decided by slightly more than a second.

And yet when Bjørn Borgen Hasløv recalls that time in Tokyo in 1964, he doesn’t remember the pain or the tension. The stroke on the Danish team that pipped the Great Britain team for gold remembers that they were a young group of men who came together as a team.

“We were young,” recalled Hasløv to me. “I was 23, still not having completed my studies because I spent my free time rowing and had no time for other things. The youngest was 20, Kurt Helmudt, who was in shipbuilding. Erik Petersen, 25, was a plumber, and John Ørsted Hansen, 26, was a fitter, charged with steering the boat. It was important that we could tell if we were rowing together, not as separate people. You have to feel your team around you. If you don’t work together, 100%, you will never be fast.”

Hasløv said that his coach, Poul Danning, taught him (among many other things) that the sport of rowing requires individuals to find their role and rhythm within a boat so that all are in synch – for example if the strongest person in the boat pulls as hard and as fast as he can, the differences in power and speed with the others will actually slow the boat down as water resistance increases due to the differential. Legendary boat maker George Yeoman Pocock expressed this insight in this way – “It is hard to make that boat go as fast as you want to. The enemy, of course, is resistance of the water, as you have to displace the amount of water equal to the weight of men and equipment, but that very water is what supports you and that very enemy is your friend.”

Hasløv believes that his team worked so well together that the water was indeed their friend that day. “Everything was going to plan. We were concentrating hard on rowing together, supporting each other, finding rhythm in the boat. I didn’t feel the pain. I could feel the water under the boat, and it sounded like music as our boat was going perfectly. It’s a strong feeling. It’s a feeling that you control your body and you are a part of a team.”

My guess is that Hasløv was feeling what Pocock and other rowers call “swing”. Daniel Brown, in his wonderful book, The Boys in the Boat, about the American Eights Rowing Team that competed in the 1936 Olympics, described “swing” for an eight-man crew this way:

There is a thing that sometimes happens in rowing that is hard to achieve and hard to define. Many crews, even winning crews, never really find it. Others find it but can’t sustain it. it’s called “swing.” it only happens when all eight oarsmen are rowing in such perfect unison that no single action by any one is out of synch with those of all the others. It’s not just that the oars enter and leave the water at precisely the same instant. Sixteen arms must begin to pull, sixteen knees must begin to fold and unfold, eight bodies must begin to slide forward and backward, eight backs must bend and straighten at once. Each minute action – each subtle

Continue reading →

Keeping Pace with the Boys in the Boat in a Roppongi Gym

The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown
The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown

The German rowing teams had already won five of the previous six rowing events in the Olympic Games hosted in Nazi Berlin. At the beginning of the main event – the eight oars – the American crew didn’t hear the man say “start”, so lost precious seconds from the beginning. They were in the last lane, which had the hardest crosswinds to overcome. Their stroke, the pace-keeper of the eight-oared crew was so ill, he looked as if he would pass out any moment. And for the first half of the race, the men’s team from Seattle, Washington was in last place with another 1,000 meters to go.

I was on my step machine at the gym yesterday, my towel and water in their place, and my Kindle resting on the step machine display. I was reading the final chapter of Daniel Brown’s brilliant book about the legendary American crew from The University of Washington – The Boys in the Boat – Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

boys in the boat_seattle PI

The description of the race, as were descriptions of all the key races, were thrilling. And as I tapped from page to page, I noticed my pace picking up on the machine. The stroke, Don Hume, was a ghost, and the coxswain Bobby Moch, was hesitant, but shouted that he wanted the 7, Joe Rantz, to take over the stroke role. That woke up Hume, who resumed his role and picked up the pace.

And again, up went my pace.

Brown writes

Continue reading →

Tokyo: 1964 Gold Medalist in Population Density

Bjorn Haslov had never been to Japan. His country Denmark (43,000 sq kilometers) is about a ninth the size of Japan in terms of area. But nothing prepared him for the difference in population size.

“I was surprised,” Haslov told me. “My country had around 4 to 5 million people at that time.

Bjorn Haslov, member of the gold medal winning Danish coxless fours
Bjorn Haslov, member of the gold medal winning Danish coxless fours

When you are coming from a small country like Denmark you have no idea what it is like to live in a country of 100 million. The train system was fantastic, and worked perfectly all the time. But it took me 15 minutes just to change platforms because there were so many people.”

Fortunately, Haslov competed on the water where he won gold as a member of the Danish coxless four rowing team.

On land, nobody was spared the mass of humanity in Tokyo. My father was a journalist in Tokyo in the late 1950s. In June of 1957, he wrote this dispatch for the Louisville Times about the consequences of jamming too many people in one place.

Thomas Tomizawa_Stars and Stripes_Tokyo_circa 1957
Thomas Tomizawa, Tokyo, 1957

Tokyo, Japan — Jiro Matsushima, a skinny accountant, stood 25 minutes without once shifting his feet while waiting for a bus that would take him home. When the bus came, he sprang into action, ramming his way past other homeward -bound Japanese. Matsushima and his brief-case barely made it inside the bus before the door closed in front of a frail old kimono-clad woman. In this jampacked city, two of your most valuable assets are patience and sharp elbows. Matsushima has both.

The whole metropolis, on a giant scale, sometimes resembles the crushing scene of a department store bargain-basement during an annual sale. Waiting in lines and bulling through throngs have become a way of life. If you think Louisville is suffering from growing pains, take a look at Japan’s capital city: 

In recent years, Tokyo has grown at the rate of 250,000 to 300,000 a year. Because of high birth rates and migrations into the city from other prefectures, there are now about 8,350,000 persons in Tokyo.

Babies are born into crowded hospitals, children attend overflowing classes, breadwinners work in cramped offices, and the oldsters have hardly enough room to die. The last statement is no exaggeration. Most of the public cemeteries are filled up. One city-operated cemetery had a little space a few weeks ago, but there so many applicants that a drawing had to be held.

That is only one of the things which caused Tokyo Governor Seiichiro Yasui, in commenting on the state of the city to say, “Overpopulation is an evil. Tokyo is overpopulated.”

As Paul McCartney wrote:

Continue reading →

The Introvert’s Silent Celebration: William Stowe and Herb Brooks

We don’t all let loose that mighty yalp in victory, jump on the pile, brother upon brother, bonding with a screaming universe that borders on the spiritual.

We sometimes go inwards, burrowing towards the source of the volcano, feeling the rumble grow. But we won’t show you. This moment isn’t for you.

When I read this passage below in “All Together“, by William Stowe, about his eight-man crew’s victory at theAll Together US trials for the chance to bring Olympic Gold back to America, I am reminded of the film “Miracle“, about the stunning 1980 victory of the men’s US ice hockey team over the USSR. In this scene, just after play-by-play announcer Al Michaels screams “Yes!”, the coach of the team, the legendary Herb Brooks, finds his way to the end of the bench, smiles at his wife, and then vanishes alone into the passageway under the stands.

He is alone. He is feeling the rumble grow. And he is happy.

Stowe had a similar experience, 16 years earlier. As he writes, his team has pulled off a mammoth, and somewhat unexpected victory to win the US trials.

We were all basking in our victory and had no reason to hurry in packing up the boat for its return to Philadelphia. I could only think about getting the USA uniform and being a part of the American team. Later when I got to my car in the parking lot, I looked around and saw that no one was watching. Only then did I let out the victory whoop, the one I had been holding back for hours, and dance a victory jig. I had no conception of what we would have to do and how hard we would have to train to best represent America in the Olympic games three months hence. I simply was savoring the moment.

Continue reading →

Vesper Victorious Under Rockets Red Glare – A Dramatic Finish to One of America’s Greatest Rowing Accomplishments

The sun had already set as the eight-oared shells pulled out of the gloom and into a storybook finish. Life Magazine - October 30, 1964
The sun had already set as the eight-oared shells pulled out of the gloom and into a storybook finish. Life Magazine – October 30, 1964

When the rowers hit the 1,500 meter mark in the 2,000 race, the sky exploded with rocket’s red glare, bombs bursting in air. It was twilight’s last gleaming when the eight-oar team from America pulled across the finish line to win the gold medal in the premier rowing event at the 1964 Summer Games.

The eight men from the Vesper Boat Club of Philadelphia had pulled off an upset, beating Germany, the reigning champions since Rome in 1960.

The start of the race had been delayed by two-and-a-half hours due to winds that appeared to give unfair advantage to rowers in certain lanes. The organizers knew the final race of the day at the Toda Rowing Course would likely be in darkness, so they consulted with anyone and everyone to figure out how to create enough light to film the race, let alone see who won.

First they organized all the cars they could, and lined them up along one side of the rowing course. But the headlights of all those cars could not blanket the entire rowing course. What happened next is explained by Olympic official, Yushi Nakamura, in William Stowe’s excellent account of the championship team in the book, “All Together – The Formidable Journey to the Gold With the 1964 Olympic Crew”.

“Two or three races prior to the final of the eight it became dark and I saw many people gathered at the finish line attempting to shine automobile headlights across the course to assist the judges. Trouble was in those days photo film was not as fast as today and car headlights were not enough to shine across the 100 meters of the course at the finish. It would be fatal that the Japanese organizing committee could not record the result of the Olympic finals on film.

“Suddenly I got an idea. The Japanese Self Defense Forces had been deeply involved in the Olympic Games with their mobile electric power and equipment. At Toda they were present with the telecommunications equipment between the start and finish line and along the course. My idea was that perhaps they had a special tool to give enough light for our needs. Fortunately I was at 2050 meter mark next to their headquarters van. I approached the senior officer and asked, ‘DO you have any tool or equipment to help us?’

“He replied, ‘We have star shells. They can illuminate the course like in day time.’ “

As Nishimura continued to explain,

Continue reading →

Coming From Way Behind in Tokyo, Vyacheslav Nikolayevich Ivanov Wins Again

From the book,
From the book, “XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964”, Asahi Shinbun

One of the greatest rowers in Olympic history, Vyacheslav Ivanov, was famous for coming from behind and winning with a super-human push. In fact, Ivanov was behind by 7 seconds with 500 meters to go in his 2,000 meter single sculls competition in Tokyo, and won the gold going away.

And yet, Ivanov must have thought his string of Olympic champions, including Melbourne in 1956 and Rome in 1960, was ending even before he could even start.

AP, October 11, 1964
AP, October 11, 1964

How he must have felt when he saw two big cracks in the hull of his new scull on October 8, just arriving in Yokohama from Tokyo. How his vessel got damaged on the Russian passenger liner is unclear. What was clear was that he had to get it repaired.

But as fortune would have it, he was in Yokohama, a port city where ship repairers were in abundance, and he was in Japan, where quality and conscientiousness are of the highest levels. His scull was

Continue reading →