The Editor has been chasing Steve for an article for some time now. This interview took place via the Internet phone with SDW at London Airport (on the way to row in the Head of the Charles in Boston), and JMB at home. The recording of our conversation was transcribed by Mrs Ann Crane. We are most grateful for her help.
What is you earliest memory of rowing at school?
Rowing on the canal, because the river was flooded. We took a quad out and Matthew Pearce's glasses fell off; as he went to catch them, we capsized into the canal. We all thought that was the end of the session and it would be a long cold walk home, but the coach, Adrian Gaynor, made us get back in the boat and row home which we all thought was mad, but we later realised it was keeping us warm.
When did you first think you were going to be a rower?
I first wanted to be a cox. I remember the first day up at the Tank, being told you were either stroke side or bow side and I was hoping I was going to be a cox. I was probably a bit too big for that. Adrian was coaching. I started rowing because I hated cricket. Quite liked Hockey. Quite enjoyed rowing at school and someone persuaded me to go to Oxford Brookes, but even at that point I remember sitting in the back of the car with you and Jeremy Hepworth and I was thinking 'If I can just make the Oxford Brookes First VIII then I would have achieved something. " So it was quite late on. I didn't realise you could make a living out of Rowing. The people who go to the Olympics do.
How long have you been professional?
Since 1998 — 7 years.
What things get in your way, apart from fast opposition:
You have to lead quite a disciplined life style. You had to sacrifice quite a lot of things - late nights and things like that.
The biggest thing for me is being away from home. I counted it out one year and it was 100 days of the year we were on training camps or racing. For the first year or two that was quite exciting going to different places but then after a while you miss home.
Why do you go overseas, apart from racing?
To break things up. To get good water. We go to Italy where you can row 30—40 minutes non stop before turning round. To get good water — the river floods in England, it freezes over sometimes and it is not very nice being just outside in England all the time. We also do cross-training — skiing and cycling. Typical cycling training session is a 2½ to 3 hour trip with a very big hill in the way and we go up it one way and down the other side, turn around and come up and down the other side again.
For heavy men like you it must be quite difficult?
Yes, we ride quite nice bikes but "all the gear and no idea"!
What about cross-country skiing — on the flat or up and down hills?
Bit of both really. We do classic skiing, which is in tracks as opposed to us skating, so technically it is more difficult than skating. There is a lot of technique to it and we have professionals that coach us. You can do a 2-3 hr session plus. It uses very similar muscles, the glutes, your legs, your stomach muscles and your arms. So there is everything you use in a rowing boat and the technique is all to do with weight transfer, gliding and changing your weight to grip. All the things that you use in a rowing boat; and you are still training on water, but it happens to be frozen water.
Long distances reminds me of Nantes. Any memories of Nantes?
I met Lionel in Japan; the French lightweight four did pretty well.
A lot of that I really enjoyed about the Boat Club at school was it was the one club that did something a little bit different. You had week-end trips away and you had holiday trips away as well. For me, especially when I had a dodgy year or two at school, it was good to just to get out. Even to run down to the river, it was only ½ a mile away but it felt like I was getting out of school and I think that helped me quite a bit.
What about Japan?
It was a bit more challenging this year. It is always challenging, moving a hundred people around and all the organisation that goes with that but first of all there was the language thing. We took a translator. The diet — we took a dietician out to make sure we got western food. There was obviously all the typhoon warnings — we were pretty lucky. Never actually had any typhoons but there were 48 hrs where, even before any racing had started, all the boats had to be packed away again and the course had to be taken out of the river. Everything was packed up in containers because they thought the typhoon was coming through and then, in the end, those 48 hrs were the best weather that we had the whole time we were in Japan. We were dead lucky with the weather and it was a fantastic regatta. The race of the regatta for me was the Mens' VIII in the repechage. It was between GB and Canada again and it was almost a reproduction of last year's final in Athens. Canada and GB were dead close and GB took it on the line. Hardly anyone knows about that race, but for me that was the race of the regatta.
Some things in life you keep improving. When you are in a game like you are for years and years, are you conscious that you improve, or are there some difficult times?
There are definitely times like that, but overall, when I came back from the break last summer the reason why I carried on was because I thought I hadn't got as good as I could be. I still thought that I could improve and that, along with still being passionate about it and still having fun doing it, those three things are the key ingredients to wanting to carry on and if any one of those was missing then I would not have carried on. Even after 4 months, very quickly, a lot of my parameters kept on moving up. I was still improving, so yes.
I thought your four looked totally different this year, did it feel different/better from inside?
It is so difficult to compare. Because it is an outdoor sport, you can't compare across times or anything like that. And also because your memory lies to you. Overall I would say that some things came to this four a lot easier than the four last time. Obviously we had a very high top end speed especially at the beginning of a race and that came very naturally. We hardly worked on that at all. We found that we were very quick there and we hardly did any work on that all year — it just came naturally. The last 6 weeks before Athens last year — that was what the whole 6 weeks was about — just getting out very, very fast and we had that almost for free this year. Other parts, like last summer, we had a very good strong rhythm in the middle of the race and I would say that if anything that's one thing that this four needs to work on.
How important will support from the bank be at Eton in the World Championships next Summer?
Masses — one thing I took away from last summer was just how many people spent quite a lot of money to come and watch us row in Athens. When we went out at 6am for our pre-race paddle, we were just rowing along and we were all focussed in our boat and we did some start practices near the finish line and once we had finished our last one, 300 British fans exploded shouting 'Come on GB' and that was just in our warm up paddle. It was just about getting light and already there were a few hundred British people who had come out to watch us practise. Then after the race there just seemed to be British fans out there. There were obviously others but at that time I just thought it was British people, and I think there were more British people than all the other countries put together. That gave us a massive lift. When everyone started shouting for us at 6am that just makes your skin tingle and the hairs stand up and you just want to row there and then. You realise what a big deal it is, not just for you but to everyone else.
Sydney must have been awful for you, when you were spare man, just waiting in the background to row:
Yes, that was really the worst — right at the bottom. But looking back on it I think I learnt so much from that experience. I don't think I would have won last summer if I hadn't gone through that experience. I think I learnt so much, I think I would choose to go through that again because I think that has really changed the rower that I am now.
Have you any tips for beginners?
Enjoy it. At the first meeting we had three weeks ago when we started rowing - the biggest thing that Jrgen focussed on - let's make sure that we have fun together because we didn't get in this sport to become rich, so why did we do it? He was stressing that we should have fun because we then perform the best, when you are relaxed and you are enjoy being in each other's company. It is not just fun having a laugh, it is enjoying stressing your body and testing yourself and seeing how good you can be. Even now when you earn a little bit of money and you get paid to win races, still the most important thing is to have fun.
All the best in Boston - it's a great race.