Happy silver-medallist home

Press, 2 September 1977, Page 4

Happy silver-medallist home

) Canterbury’s silver medal-’ liist in the coxless fours at the; world rowing championships,! David Lindstrom, arrived home last evening to be I greeted by his wife. Lyn. and; his month-old daughter. Mel-; anie. as well as a horde ofi fellow Avon rowers. Lindstrom. weary but! happy, was over an hour late I arriving at Christchurch; International Airport be-1 cause of a hold-up in AuckJ land. His fellow silver-medallist,! i Ivan Sutherland, arrived with Lindstrom. I In the race at Amsterdam, ! ithe New Zealanders were! ; beaten by a length by the ; powerful East Germans, with -the Czechoslovakians a fur-! ither length back. - It was the best result by a ’senior rowing team since the’ ieight’s gold medal at the !1972 Munich Olympics. Lindstrom was the stroke for the crew, which also in-i

icluded Desmond Lock and! ; David Rodgers. I The East Germans were! probably the main obstacle) Ito the New Zealanders’ race; (for the gold. ! “They were as strong as) ever. We didn’t get away to) ’a good start possibly be-1 ;cause we took some time to) I settle down,” he said. However, Lindstrom said; I he was happy about the race! ;— “it was a boomer” — and! iadded that all the sacrifices) I that go with competing at) the top level had been worth) i making. i ! The East Germans are not! I regarded as being invincible) by Mr Warren Cole, the man-1 ager of the New Zealand (rowing team. “They are having a great! run at the moment.” said Mr! 'Cole at Auckland Airport.) "They are going through a; very good patch but I don’t;’ think they are invincible. We '■ got up to within half a I second of them — and they;

(didn't win everything at Amsterdam.” ! “I think our chances in the I next world championships, j at Lake Karapiro, are great,” I he said. “They will have the same problems and frustrations then that we go (through when we have to (travel away, and we will be | on our home course, with I none of the tiring travel to I face.” • Mr Cole did not forsee, | nor did he approve, New ; Zealand rowers having a • longer period of preparation together as a unit before the |next world championships in (order to match East Ger- : many. “We will have our normal period,” he said. “Unless the selectors increase it. We had eight to 10 weeks’ preparation for these championships before leaving New Zealand, and four weeks overseas before the championships.” Mr Cole said that the decision to purchase overseas rowing shells — which would!

be brought to New Zealand for the Lake Karapiro championships — was not in any way because they were superior to New Zealand shells.

“Technology in boatbuilding has evened out throughout the world,” Mr Cole said. “The East Germans had plastic boats. We have plastic boats. Theirs were certainly no lighter than ours. The East German gear was exactly similar to our own, down to the last millimetre. Their oars were not anything special — they were exactly similar to ours. “What it means,” said Mr Cole, “is that it comes down to the man in the boat.” Mr Cole also favoured dispensing with the cox in double and four-oar crews.

“It will happen in the pairs and fours — but not until after 1980.” he said. “I think it will make the pairs and the fours a lot stronger — a cox is hardly an i athlete.”