Royal Dreams

I first decided to try this sport many years ago because I thought it was beautiful, and graceful, and altogether a supreme, voluntary trial by ordeal. But most of all because it was - is - beautiful. In 1984, I watched Pertti Karppinen row down Peter Michael Kolbe in the closing strokes of the Olympic 1X Final. I had a vague awareness that the sport of sliding-seat rowing existed, but had never seen it myself. I remember turning to my older brother (much older) and saying “you know, those boats are pretty cool.” Forty-one years later, my opinion on that hasn’t changed at all.

A lot of people don’t believe me when I tell them that I’d rather win the Diamond Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta than be awarded the Super Bowl MVP. It’s a moot point; even if I were a superlative athlete in either sport, I’m also at least a decade and a half beyond the age at which either outcome would be something that could yet happen. None of that makes it any less true.

Finally, and I promise that I’m not engaged in a game of “topper” with my own opinionated contrarianism, I’ll offer that winning at any level from the Olympics down to the lowliest local dual race is never really the point. The noble heart of the matter is always the purity of the race itself: how close did you come to the best race that you were capable of producing today? Or were you content merely to finish ahead when you could have gone much faster? Or did you find yourself in third place with 750m to go and decide that was pretty good when you could have caught the sculler(s) ahead of you? Do everything within your capabilities to make the boat go fast when you race. Be a sculler who can be counted on to do exactly that. That’s enough. It’s all there is.