Eakins rejected gentlemen athletics as his theme. Instead, he took a subject that had been the stuff of illustrated weeklies and the penny press and turned it into fine art. Eakins celebrates not fire from heaven but honest sweat, not genius but hard work.

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.

In college, I was an editor on the student daily... To the extent that I noticed the existence of crew at all, I saw only what appeared to be big-boned acolytes who rose at dawn.

The greatest poet who ever wrote about rowing is Virgil, the greatest historian is Thucydides, but the greatest imagination ever to turn its attention to the sport is that of painter, Thomas Eakins.

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.

It's the quintessential Greek sport: harmonious, competitive, agonizing, nautical, and above all, intelligent. It combines Odysseus's brains and brawn and love of the sea with the tactical precision of the Spartan pikeman.

Rowing it was pointed out, was a sport that risked few injuries. So it was, I ould discover, but only if you did it right.