BY DOCTOR ROWING
PHOTO BY PETER SPURRIER
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For a while now, my buddy Tom Kiefer has been suggesting ideas for columns or simply letting me know some of the wacky things that he has witnessed in his over 40 years in the sport. With thanks for his input on some of these items, here’s a list of rowing items that can be answered with a true or false. Test your knowledge. Amaze your friends. Are you a novice, varsity, or world champion rowing aficionado?*
- Dick Erickson gave traffic reports to a local radio station from his University of Washington coaching launch in Seattle.
- In 1979, the Soviet women’s coxed four experimented with a specially-constructed shell that placed the coxswain between the bow and stern pairs.
- There has never been a bow-coxed eight at a FISA championship regatta.
- FISA plans to introduce mixed-gender events at championship regattas.
- The legendary Larry Gluckman sat down on an erg at kickoff of a Super Bowl and rowed until the final whistle
- Tiff Wood ran 200 stadia at Harvard on July 4, 1976 to celebrate the American bicentennial.
- No eight has ever gone faster than 5:20 over 2,000 meters.
- Six-oared shells without cox were at one time a very popular boat class in the United States
- No women’s eight has ever gone faster than 6:00 over 2,000 meters.
- “Take a 10 to ease the pain,” was a motto for U.S. coach Ted Nash.
- The first eight to go faster than 6:00 was the U.S. men’s eight at the Paris Olympics in 1924.
- Women’s crews rowed 1,000 meters at FISA events until 1985.
- No lightweight woman has ever rowed 2k on the Concept2 erg faster than 7:00.
- The only countries to have won gold medals in the women’s eight in the Olympics are East Germany, Romania, and the United States.
- Both parents of Olympic singles silver medalist Gevvie Stone rowed in the Olympics.
- The first U.S. crew to win an event at the Henley Royal Regatta was from Columbia College.
- The four without coxswain was invented when, at a pre-arranged signal, a coxswain jumped overboard, lightening the boat’s load.
- Steve Wagner, a coach at Florida Institute of Technology, once seat raced an oarsman with a Twinkie. The Twinkie won.
- No American woman has ever won Olympic gold in the single scull.
- This summer marks the 25th anniversary of Doctor Rowing’s columns.
*Answers will be posted on RowingNews.com tomorrow
