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Single scullers are Great8

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25/03/2009

When the top eight male single scullers in the world came together in one boat, one eight, they caused heads to turn – heads that had to turn and watch them disappear into the distance at a fair speed. The Great8 has won the Head of the River Race in Great Britain.

Bill Barry, coach of Great Britain’s top single sculler, Alan Campbell, decided to make it his mission to put the best single scullers in a sweep boat as he believed that they would beat top sweep crews.

Barry was proven correct when his boat, dubbed the Great8, finished first in the Head of the River Race and in the process beat a crew full of Olympic sweep medallists, including Olympic Champion Peter Reed, by nearly four seconds.

The Great8 included Campbell, Tim Maeyens (BEL), Marcel Hacker (GER), Mahe Drysdale (NZL), Olaf Tufte (NOR), Ondrej Synek (CZE), Iztok Cop (SLO) and Andre Vonarburg (SUI). Apart from Cop (2000 Olympic Champion in the double), these are the athletes that made up the top places in the men’s single at the Beijing Olympics.

The crew, from around the world, only came together earlier in the week and managed eight rows before the race. Barry says for every row there were spectators on the bridges and along the banks watching the boat and television coverage of the race was made for seven of the nations involved.

The idea of putting the eight best scullers together has been a thought of Barry’s for the last three years. “At my club (Tideway Scullers) we put an eight together for some races and usually do very well,” says Barry. “I approached the top scullers and the year after the Olympics worked the best for people as it is a looser year in terms of training. Everyone was very enthusiastic.”

Barry says a big challenge in putting the boat together was working with the egos. “It was eight super-alpha men. Their egos would fill a warehouse,” says Barry. “I’m used to dealing with alpha males and females and I know that you don’t want to lose the egos but you want to get them to focus on the team objective. So we focused on rhythm.”

Barry did not hold back if something needed to be said in terms of technique. “When they were in the boat I made comments to the crew as a whole. For individual comments, I did it out of the boat by themselves.”

There was never any doubt for Barry that the crew would do well. “Being a single sculler you only have yourself, so you always have to be working to make the boat move. The single builds independence and toughness and when they’re tired they learn to focus more on rhythm and technique. I also think they have a better feel for the movement of the boat.”

At this stage Barry has no plans to organise a crew like this again. “This now goes down in history, there is no challenge in repeating it.”