Final heartbreak can spur you on to rowing success

FORMER rowers at Shiplake College are hoping that history will not repeat itself at this year’s Henley Royal Regatta.

Andrew Brooks, Ben Hunt-Davis and Robin Graham were part of the 1989 coxed eight when they were knocked out of the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup.

They led the race against Hampton until Fawley but in the end they were beaten by a length with the opposing crew breaking a course record by 10 seconds.

Then last year, Mr Brooks’s son, Ben, 18, who sat in the bow seat, suffered a similar fate against St Paul’s. The crew lost by three-quarters of a length in the same event.

Andrew Brooks, 53, is the managing director of Bewley Homes, who lives in Sherfield-on-Loddon and his son has taken a gap year before studying real estate at Oxford Brookes University from September.

Mr Brooks recalled: “Last year I always felt like they fought them. They went from length to length in front and you couldn’t hear the commentary because the crowd was so loud and there were such high emotions.

“I was living in the moment during the final because everything was about my son and the boys.”

Mr Brooks had not thought about the parallel with his own crew until it was announced by the race commentary team.

“It was nostalgic,” he said. “I didn’t think about our time until we were listening to the live stream through the phones.

“A minute into the race they said about last time when Shiplake got to the final and they mentioned my name and everyone cheered. It is something to always be proud of but we didn’t win. I just wanted them to be the first crew to have that opportunity and they were so close.” He recalls the “pressure cooker” moment when his son’s crew came up short.

Mr Brooks said: “As soon as you’re over the line, your body either fills up with euphoria, which takes over the pain, or you lose, and everything hurts. The emotion comes a bit later, by the time you get to the landing stage, you realise everything you’ve worked for has gone.

“Everything is building to that moment. It’s not like there’s another competition like that.

“It’s a pressure cooker moment. You’re either letting off all that pressure and steam or you’re celebrating and it’s like a confetti bomb.”

Mr Brooks advises rowers who were a part of last year’s crew who are competing again this year to “remember the pain”.

He said: “Remember the pain of going over the finish line and what it felt like to not win. They will have all watched it back and doubted themselves or someone else, and believed they could have won.

“Every single stroke you take is towards that end goal and you’ve got to make it count. You have to believe you are up there.”

Ben Hunt-Davis, 53, was the stroke in the 1989 crew. His son Luca, 17, will row in the eight at this year’s regatta.

The crew won at the National Schools’ Regatta in May, despite being the underdogs.

The performance coach and author of Will It Make The Boat Go Faster? won gold in the eight at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, the first British crew to have won this event since 1912. He competed in the 1992 Barcelona Games and the 1996 Atlanta Games, winning a silver medal in the 1999 World Rowing Championships before taking home gold in the Olympics.

Mr Hunt-Davis said: “It still looks as though they will be the second fastest crew in the country, so they should be aiming to try and win this year.

“It’s different from when I did it. They train harder, faster and stronger. We enjoy discussing it together, as I have an understanding of what they’re going through and what they’re trying to do.

“The key thing in this sport, because training hard isn’t good enough anymore, is looking at how you can improve.

“Can you learn to be a better rower? Can you learn to be faster than everybody else? Can you improve faster? This is the real challenge.

“During races, be willing to push yourself harder than you think you can. You have to be willing to hurt yourself mentally and push those limits.”

Mr Hunt-Davis spent five years boarding at Shiplake College, juggling rugby and rowing, before being encouraged to continue on the water.

He said: “When I was leaving school, I had the choice of either going to Bath to try and get a part-time job so I could play rugby or going to Oxford Brookes to row. Both my rowing and rugby coaches said to row.

“I came second at the Worlds and was pretty disappointed and thought ‘I need to do that again so I can win’. Instead, I eventually ended up getting to the Olympics and winning gold.

“There was a massive pressure because we had really high expectations, and other people didn’t. Our goal was simple: we wanted to win, and we did exactly that. It was a massive relief of pressure when we finally did.” His daughter, Julia, 22, rows for the University of California and won gold in the eight at last year’s under-23 World Rowing Championships.

Mr Hunt-Davis said: “Winning at Henley is really fun and, as a spectator, when you see someone lose, it’s slightly less painful. I’ve only won there twice but seeing my daughter row there these last couple of years, and now my son, is so exciting.”

Robin Graham, who works in investment banking and lives in California, remembers the “heartbreak” of losing in seat seven in the eight in 1989.

He continued rowing with Mr Hunt-Davis, as part of Team GB juniors, before attending Harvard University. Mr Graham refused to beat himself up after losing at Henley.

He said: “I think our schoolboy racing was definitely the highlight of our careers because there’s just so much emotion involved.

“To this day, I don’t really know what more we could have done to change the outcome of that race. “It was real heartbreak,” he said. “A big guy in the Hampton crew said to us halfway through the race that we were pushing them hard as we went neck to neck and they could feel his crew starting to come apart. They were really concerned they were going to lose, so that felt good.

“They had dominated schoolboy rowing for so long, and I think they went into the race thinking they were going to win. They had beaten their biggest opponent, Eton, the day before, so it was an incredible race.

“We set two course records that season but they managed to overpower us by three-quarters of a length as we came to the finish line.” The adrenaline of the crowds kept the crew going through the pain. He said: “The whole place is just pandemonium. Everybody is screaming, yelling and singing. All you can hear is Shiplake chanting over the crowds. It’s like being in a gladiator pit.” Despite losing, making it to the finals was a “huge achievement” for the crew.

Mr Graham said: “It was depressing for a long time, but what keeps you positive is focusing on what you did achieve.

“We never expected to be there in the first place, so we had an incredible outcome even though we lost in the final.”

He echoes the advice of other former rowers to this year’s crew, encouraging them to believe in themselves.

Mr Graham added: “Do not go into the race believing anything other than you can. On the right day, with the right race conditions and the right attitude, you can win, and you will.”