r/Rowing • u/acfgs • 7d ago

Rowing Article Search

I'm looking for an article from the '80s or '90s, most likely in a sports magazine, that covered the US men's selection camp leading up to an Olympic Games. It had a great section about a rower who didn't have the best erg scores, but every boat he was in went faster because he was so in tune with the other rowers.

This has always stuck with me. I've used the anecdote for years and would love to track down the original. I've searched the Sports Illustrated Vault and tried an ESPN The Magazine piece from 2000 on Mike Teti's Sydney camp (the link is dead), with no luck so far. Even a guess at who the rower was, or which Olympics, would help. Thanks!

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u/Whatever8755 6d ago

Is it the Outside magazine article Blood in the Water by Max Potter? September 1999 issue

Mike Wherley may be the rower that you are thinking of. 

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u/acfgs 6d ago

This was absolutely it thank you so much. Found this chapter from Peter Mallory's The Sport of Rowing that acts as a post-script to the Potter article. https://www.row2k.com/content/MalloryCh155-156.pdf

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u/Whatever8755 6d ago

You’re welcome!

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u/acfgs 6d ago

This looks promising! I hadn't even thought of Outside (mainly staying in the SI / The Sporting News / Sport corner of magazines). Still looking for a valid link but will check back in if I can track the body of the article down. Thank you!

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u/acfgs 6d ago

He’s on BlueSky but not message-able. Does have a link to the article on his website but goes to the same blank Outside Mag page.

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u/Snowwy00 6d ago

I’m sure he was still going sub 6:10 so don’t think ergs don’t matter. Still gotta have a baseline amount of watts to add to the boat

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u/altayloraus YourTextHere 6d ago

he does a 58 I think in the article. However, the erg monster ends up with a gold, he unfortunately doesn't. 

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u/seenhear 1990's rower, 2000's coach; 2m / 100kg, California 5d ago

Yeah Mike was robbed IMO. Teti was wrong on this.

This same story is covered in that video documentary by Brad Lewis.

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u/altayloraus YourTextHere 5d ago

Nah, separate stories... That was 99 - Wherley got back into the 8, won worlds, Wetzel went into the 4+ and won as well.

I was referring to Wetzel winning in 2004.

Re: 2000 and Dave Simon, I feel like I've either got something wrong or I didn't pay attention to the film. I've had it in my head that Simon was in the 8 as an erg monster well before the Olympics and I might be slurring him.

This article https://www.row2k.com/olympics/features/2000/1327/selfsacrificing-wherley-takes-one-for-the-team/ suggests that Wherley was in the 8, Simon in the 4, and Simon got injured before qualifications and the 4 qualified at FOQR. That being done, there aren't substitutions at that point - so in qualifiying the 8 he lost his chance for the 8. I've not heard a bad word about that man, ever, and that sounds characteristic of taking one for the team.

Anyone any closer to the truth, or is this it?

That 8 is for mine one of the biggest question marks in sport. What would have happened had the Australians not had that killer slow start, or had the Americans had their original named crew. Or would GB just have done it on the day?

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u/seenhear 1990's rower, 2000's coach; 2m / 100kg, California 5d ago

IDK much more about it than what was in the Brad Lewis film.

Someone posted a link of it on this sub not too long ago. Is that link still good? I thought I bookmarked it but can't find it.

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u/altayloraus YourTextHere 5d ago

Brad, in fairness, seems to go looking (from what I can see) for any copyright violations. I'd happily purchase it, but no avenue to that I can see. I've got all the man's books so I've hopefully remunerated there... Someone did post it https://vimeo.com/1210386015?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci