The rower need to know technique and has to be in shape. He won't wrong by using strategy. Yet what it takes to win races is the ability to reach inside and pull out something to keep you going - no, to go faster - when you have nothing left to give. There's a word for what that takes and the word is not magic, the word is guts.

So to the lyre of Orpheus they struck with their oars, The furious water of the sea, and the surge broke into waves. Here and there the dark brine gushed with foam, Roaring terribly through the strength of the mighty men.

The rower need to know technique and has to be in shape. He won't wrong by using strategy. Yet what it takes to win races is the ability to reach inside and pull out something to keep you going - no, to go faster - when you have nothing left to give. There's a word for what that takes and the word is not magic, the word is guts.

When you are on the erg your mind is too busy to pay attention to the sounds of the machine; you notice only that they are indeed loud.

A boat is the hardest think I know of to put into perspective. It is so much like a human figure, there is something alive about it.

The single sculler, alone on the river at dawn, or spotlighted in his lane during a race, is th emost romantic, the most quixotic figure in all rowing.

The oars game me power but also taught me humility.