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SLAM! Sports '99 Rowing Worlds INTERACTIVE ALSO ON SLAM!  |
Sunday, August 29, 1999Rowing Canada to deal with team dissension"I don't know," replied Bruce Robertson, director of Rowing Canada's high-performance programs, when asked following the world championships Sunday if Maxrath would be around next year. Derek Porter, who won the bronze single sculls medal for Canada on Saturday, says Maxrath should resign. Porter, and others in disagreement with Maxrath's techniques, have declined to work with him. The dissension in the ranks was glaring during the 1999 worlds, and Robertson indicated he'd have preferred Porter keep his comments about Maxrath within the team rather than comment in the media. "Derek has a lot of credibility as an athlete and to some degree his performance allows him to speak the way he does," said Robertson. "On the other hand, in the interests of the team as a whole, it's somewhat better to deal with it through the right channels. I'm not sure the press is the best place for us to deal with our problems." Robertson won gold in Canada's eight -- Porter was the stroke -- at the 1992 Olympics. He knows coaches and athletes do not always get along. "Not everybody is going to get along, and they don't have to, but they need to have some fundamental respect for themselves, for each other, and we move forward from there. "Coaches often are the bad guys, but they also are the guys who keep the door open to a lot of gold medals in the Canadian rowing program." The matter will be resolved quickly, he promised. "It will be done -- one way or another -- in the interests of our athletes and their performances," he said. Maxrath has a year remaining on his contract. With a budget of less than $1 million a year, Canada's rowing team can hardly afford to eat a salary. Reports of team dissension "came at exactly the time it could hurt the team most," Maxrath complains. "I want to see the problem solved," he said. "It undermined my position. "(The situation) is unacceptable. I want Rowing Canada to do something about it. These guys are playing with my career and my reputation as a coach. I want to stay for my guys. They believe in what we are doing and we have a good relationship." Maxrath's heavyweight eight finished eighth overall -- the same as last year. Seven crews were granted Olympic qualifying spots by FISA, the world governing body for the sport. Maxrath's crew will get another chance in pre-Olympic regattas next year to get to Sydney. Adam Parfitt rows in the heavyweight eight, and he stands behind Maxrath. "We're into the final push for the Olympics and we're putting a lot on the line," he said. "To have to go through a coaching change and things like that . . . there's no way people would stand for something like that so close (to the Olympics). "We're happy with what we have. It wouldn't make sense to change coaches." Parfitt also said he wished the dispute could have been handled internally. "It hasn't been professional," he said. "These things should be dealt with one on one." In terms of overall team performance, Robertson was happy about the results generated by Canada's 12 entries. There were four medal-winning performances. "I think the team performed very well," he said. "We had eight crews in finals and we won some medals, and it is definitely getting harder to win medals in international rowing. There's no question about that." Six Canadian boats met FISA qualifying standards for Sydney. But it will be difficult to duplicate the success of 1996 in Atlanta and 1992 in Barcelona. "One of the things we used to do in the past was work 10 times harder than anybody else," Robertson said. "Now, that's not good enough. Now you have to be smarter. You really have to pay attention to all the physical details like diet, training programs, and adequate time off for the athletes." The only Canadian to win a men's heavyweight sweep-oar medal at these worlds was Jake Wetzel -- but he did it for the United States. The Saskatchewan native used to be on Canada's team. He was seventh in sweep-oar pairs at the 1998 worlds. Because his father is an American, his dual citizenship enables him to row for the United States this year. Two factors drove him south, said the stroke of the victorious U.S. four with coxswain. First, he rows at the University of California at Berkeley, and U.S. coach Mike Teti uses the U.S. college system to feed oarsmen directly into his world-bound boats when school is out. Second, Wetzel was another athlete at odds with Maxrath. "I had problems with Max," Wetzel said. "I feel very much the same way as Derek does. (Maxrath) made my decision easier." Easy is not an adjective Robertson would use to describe his pending decision on the future composition of Rowing Canada's coaching staff. 
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