Broken Oars, Episode 4: The Greatest Of The Great: GB Coxless Fours Olympic Victories Through The Ages.

 

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After the magnificence that was Di Binley and Episode Three, Broken Oars is back with a humdinging corker of an Episode Four (they said modestly).

 

Released on the day that Jurgen Grobler, the greatest high performance coach in sporting history, stepped down from his role as Head Coach of British Rowing either through luck, insider knowledge of what was coming or happenstance we find ourselves celebrating some of the greatest hits of his legacy. 

 

(Let's be honest, it was luck).

 

In Episode Four, then, one of us breaks the other foot, the other laughs about it, we do our housekeeping (or as we're now calling it, airing our dirty laundry in public), and we stop John Inverdale and other salaried BBC presenters from stealing the catchphrases and insights Broken Oars has generated so far by pointing out that they're ours and they're copyrighted.

 

We float the idea of launching an official Broken Oars 'No James Cracknells Left Behind' t-shirt; and ask Hypatia from York to step in to settle the debate as to whether it was the ancient Greeks or Romans who originated the bath house culture, thus giving rise to the word 'bathetic' (could have something to do with drama, but we're rowers, so we aren't sure).

 

Then, and only then, do we get to the main course: a full and frank discussion of which GB Heavyweight Men's Coxless Four Olympic win was the best. We argue about judging criteria (purely and simple, which was the best row from a rowing perspective), we say things icons of the sport that means they'll probably never come on Broken Oars, but we also say things about other icons of the sport that means they might.

 

We discuss the glory and the dream that was Redgrave's Last Stand; we give props to a mighty Canadian boat at Athens; one of us (for the first time ever) says nice things about an Australian crew in the context of Beijing and then promptly ruins his reputation by going on to say equally nice things about the Australian crew at London 2012. We rhapsodise about the dominance of Louloudis et al at Rio and then we choose a winner before asking you to disagree with us on the Twitter feed.

 

Or agree with us, but you're all rowers, so that will never happen.

 

We go on to talk about the dangers of triumphalism and hubris with the future of British Rowing's Elite Programme up in the air, and ask if the future will be as glorious as the past.

 

It's almost like we knew Jurgen was going.

 

And then we bugger off.

 

No James Cracknells were harmed in the making of this episode.

 

(First published in August 2020)

 

Full crew ... come forward to row.

 

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