We discover that having launched a podcast, the world of social media has more trolls in it than the average folk tale, one particularly loathsome specimen having crawled out from under his rock to assert that GB's rowers were all dopers, because they had been trained by an East German Coach in the Mighty Jurgen Grobler - who had and had never hidden coming up through the old East German system, where doping was prevalent. After back-and-forths on Twitter which led to Sir MP DM'ing us to give us the very good advice not to bother with morons, we realised we had the perfect platform to discuss the issue with the pod. 

So we did. 

-----

As promised, Broken Oars Podcast returns on its week off to address the accusations levelled at Jurgen Grobler and British Rowing following the release of Episode Four.

If you haven't heard it yet (Why not? We're on Apple now - there's no excuse. Go and listen), Episode Four discussed Britain's Coxless Four Olympic Finals successes and performances. It dropped (as we believe the kids say to signify digital releases) on the same day that Jurgen Grobler stepped down as Head Coach of British Rowing after 29 years.

Barely had Episode Four hit the worldwide web before a very vocal group of trolls lumbered out from beneath their bridges and onto our Twitter feed, drawn by the trip-trapping sound of their trigger words: 'Jurgen Grobler', 'British Rowing' and 'Gold Medals.'

Although we tried to address the points raised by these individuals on Twitter, we realised that we'd stirred up something that needed addressing.

So here we are, addressing it. Never let it be said that the Broken Oars Podcast runs from a tough session. We have, after all, survived Runcorn in the rain and Green Lake in the first round at Henley Royal. 

Just.

In this episode, then, we resolve where Lionel Messi is going after Barcelona, we settle the 'Rule Britannia' Farageo, and we thank Thames Tradesmen for inventing the Broken Oars Podcast Drinking Game.

(WARNING: ANYONE WITH THE WORDS 'JURGEN', 'GDR', 'DOPING', AND 'TROLLS' ON THEIR CARD FOR THIS EPISODE IS IN FOR A HEAVY NIGHT).

Then, we address the comments, one-by-one and point-by-point.

We examine the subtext that a global, overarching conspiracy was launched from Henley-in-Thames to turn British Rowing into the dominant force in World Rowing (spoiler alert: it might not have been).

We discuss at Jurgen's appointment, his past in the GDR, and his subsequent stewardship of British Rowing, addressing how the narrative of his past has been presented and asking if it could have been more nuanced (hint - yes). We compare what is known now to what was known then, and assess the difficulties in clearly defining and apportioning blame and responsibility given the circumstances. 

We look at the evaluatory principles of 'beyond reasonable doubt' and 'on the balance of probability' that underpin all of our safeguarding institutions in the UK; and discuss the relevance of the rehabilitative principle in Jurgen's case before moving on to examine the UK's approach to doping testing, comparing British Rowing to its counterparts in the wider field of Team GB. In doing so, we talk about 'positive', 'negative' and 'negative but' testing in this context. 

Going on to look at the known impact of doping regimes on athlete performance, athlete welfare and the medal table, we look at British Rowing's performances since Jurgen Grobler's arrival, particularly in terms of the development of the men's and women's squads and our Olympic returns. We ask if there could be any other reason for Britain's steadily but not dramatically improving success on the rowing lake beyond doping (spoiler alert: it might have something to do with the creation of a World Class Start Programme and the arrival of funding and centralisation rather than little blue pills). 

We talk athlete physiology and the impact of doping on that, and note that British Rowing would be an entirely clean sport were it not for the antics of a couple of idiots from the Headington Road Young Offenders Institute Rowing Club (Hi, Oxford Brookes ...).

We discuss the importance of rowing culture vs. other sporting cultures and its significance in keeping doping in the sport at bay (we believe in doing the work, not shortcuts) and express a hope that it long continues (while acknowledging that we must not be complacent: it only takes two idiots to ruin the reputation of an entire sport).

Stern Four ... Drop Out. You're making Bow Four look bad.

-----

Enjoyed this episode?

Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world.

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Thank You!

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1

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We were starting to realise that much as in real life, we could talk about anything on Broken Oars - and over the next four years we often did. As men of a certain age (old enough to know better, still young enough to occasionally not follow through on that) our rowing careers took place among a run of British Olympic success that had started with Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent and continued through to Tokyo - at this point postponed due to COVID. A lover of crews and crew boats, although capable single scullers, we decided to sit down and ask the question: did the modern age start with the GB Sydney Four, as the story suggests, or had there been a better British boat in that category since. It got spicy. It got silly. It got serious. Enjoy!

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After the magnificence that was Di Binley and Episode Three, Broken Oars is back with a humdinging corker of an Episode Four (they said modestly).

Released on the day that Jurgen Grobler, the greatest high performance coach in sporting history, stepped down from his role as Head Coach of British Rowing either through luck, insider knowledge of what was coming or happenstance we find ourselves celebrating some of the greatest hits of his legacy. 

(Let's be honest, it was luck).

In Episode Four, then, one of us breaks the other foot, the other laughs about it, we do our housekeeping (or as we're now calling it, airing our dirty laundry in public), and we stop John Inverdale and other salaried BBC presenters from stealing the catchphrases and insights Broken Oars has generated so far by pointing out that they're ours and they're copyrighted.

We float the idea of launching an official Broken Oars 'No James Cracknells Left Behind' t-shirt; and ask Hypatia from York to step in to settle the debate as to whether it was the ancient Greeks or Romans who originated the bath house culture, thus giving rise to the word 'bathetic' (could have something to do with drama, but we're rowers, so we aren't sure).

Then, and only then, do we get to the main course: a full and frank discussion of which GB Heavyweight Men's Coxless Four Olympic win was the best. We argue about judging criteria (purely and simple, which was the best row from a rowing perspective), we say things icons of the sport that means they'll probably never come on Broken Oars, but we also say things about other icons of the sport that means they might.

We discuss the glory and the dream that was Redgrave's Last Stand; we give props to a mighty Canadian boat at Athens; one of us (for the first time ever) says nice things about an Australian crew in the context of Beijing and then promptly ruins his reputation by going on to say equally nice things about the Australian crew at London 2012. We rhapsodise about the dominance of Louloudis et al at Rio and then we choose a winner before asking you to disagree with us on the Twitter feed.

Or agree with us, but you're all rowers, so that will never happen.

We go on to talk about the dangers of triumphalism and hubris with the future of British Rowing's Elite Programme up in the air, and ask if the future will be as glorious as the past.

It's almost like we knew Jurgen was going.

And then we bugger off.

No James Cracknells were harmed in the making of this episode.

(First published in August 2020)

Full crew ... come forward to row.

-----

Please follow us on:

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@brokenoarspodcast

Please order: 

A copy of our first book, Charlotte Jackson and the Magic Blanket: https://tinyurl.com/53674jbu

Please visit: 

Our Website: www.thelandingstage.net

It's turned into a toxic place, but we're also on Twitter: 

www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1

Released on August 7th 2020, Episode Three saw Broken Oars Podcast welcome its first ever guest - the incredible, inimitable Di Binley. For some reason neither of us can remember, Dr. Lewin Hynes, yet to be dubbed the Southern One, flew solo on this episode - and does a brilliant job, because, well, he's brilliant. 

Want the original episode notes? Here they are. 

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A coming-of-age for Broken Oars Podcast as one of us works out how to edit audio; another of us breaks a foot; and we welcome our first guest to the pod:

Former owner and driving force behind Rock the Boat, the shop all rowers have used at some point, and still a fount of general rowing awesomeness, Di Binley joins us.

We chat about Di's background in rowing, Rock the Boat's founding and development, the evolution of rowing during her time in it - highlighting the importance of community; volunteers; being nice and having fun to this wonderful sport that we all know and love.

We also give a big shout-out to Rebecca Caroe and open our arms to the worldwide rowing community (while maintaining our (possibly deluded) belief that we can probably take most of them on the line ...).

Get Some!

Ladies and Gentleman, full crew, from backstops ...

-----

Please follow us on:

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@brokenoarspodcast

Please order: 

A copy of our first book, Charlotte Jackson and the Magic Blanket: https://tinyurl.com/53674jbu

Please visit: 

Our Website: www.thelandingstage.net

It's turned into a toxic place, but we're also on Twitter: 

www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1

Our second episode was published on July 24th 2020. We still hadn't really got to grips with the whole podcast format thing at this point. We never really did, to be honest. We were having too much fun catching up with each other and talking to our amazing guests. We wouldn't change anything apart from perhaps uploading our conversations to Youtube. We made a decision early on to stick to audio, largely because at the time we just couldn't fathom why people would want to tune in to watch people having a chat together. Still, there it is.

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In Episode Two, Dr. Lewin Hynes, who would soon come to be known as The Southern One, and Dr. Aaron Jackson, who would soon come to be known as The Northern One got together to welcome you to the second Broken Oars Podcast where we proudly proclaimed that we were for rowers everywhere who believe that rowing was better a ten to twelve years ago - regardless of what year it is. 

All rowers, in other words. 

In our sophomore effort, we make the necessary factual corrections from the first effort; ensure that no dictatorships were harmed in the making of the podcast; apologise for our 'indie' sound quality; discuss whether there's a certain lack of personality in the current GB rowing set up; provide some background to the rowing careers of both hosts; and address the welcoming nature of rowing clubs to outsiders (hint - could do better); and ask finally 'whither 2K? - should the gold standard distance actually be the gold standard?'

(First published July 24 2020)

Full crew, come forward to row ...

-----

Please follow us on:

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@brokenoarspodcast

Please order: 

A copy of our first book, Charlotte Jackson and the Magic Blanket: https://tinyurl.com/53674jbu

Please visit: 

Our Website: www.thelandingstage.net

It's turned into a toxic place, but we're also on Twitter: 

www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1

(Deep gravelly voice): On this day five years ago, while the world languished in the depths of COVID, in a time when there were NO rowing podcasts (other than a few we've forgotten to mention), two men got together to change the world as we know it ... 

They were Dr. Lewin Hynes, who would come to be known as The Southern One, and Dr. Aaron Jackson, who would come to be known as The Northern One and they created the world's first, only and still best rowing podcast. 

And they called it Broken Oars Podcast. 

And rowers looked and listened and saw it was good. 

We retired after interviewing Sir Matthew Pinsent last April, weeping for we had no more words to conquer. Little did we realise that Finn Hamill would happen ... 

And so in the spirit of leveraging IP in the age of AI (no, we don't know what it means either) and coming from the land where there's never anything on but repeats on the BBC, we're rereleasing our Broken Oars Episodes in sequence - because they're full of rowing goodness. 

So, here goes. The first one was literally recorded down a 'phone line and boy does it show ... 

-----

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Welcome to the very first Broken Oars Podcast - the podcast for rowers everywhere and anywhere who believe that rowing was better ten to twelve years ago - regardless of what year it is.

Launched by Dr. Aaron Jackson and Dr. Lewin Hynes as a way to bust lockdown 1.0, and to give somewhere for their endless chats about rowing to go, in our first episode Broken Oars introduce the hosts, discusses their technical and renal inadequacies; addresses the reality that Redgrave couldn't have been that good because he never won Runcorn Head in the rain; how auctioning off GB National Squad rowers to provincial clubs for a racing season would make everyone love the sport more; and why no tears should be shed for the passing of lightweightism.

(First released 20/07/2020)

So it begins ...

Please follow us on:

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@brokenoarspodcast

Please order: 

A copy of our first book, Charlotte Jackson and the Magic Blanket: https://tinyurl.com/53674jbu

Please visit: 

Our Website: www.thelandingstage.net

It's turned into a toxic place, but we're also on Twitter: 

www.twitter.com/brokenoarspodc1

We're back once again, the renegade masters ...

Southern One: You've done that one.

Here we are, the world's greatest rowing podcast, returning once again ...

Southern One: You've done that one too.

Northern One: You do realise that I write all the blurbs?

Southern One: I do. And a fine job you make of it too.

Northern One: And you do realise that we're over one hundred episodes deep now.

Southern One: I do. And that's why we're the world's greatest rowing podcast. Including Martin Cross.

Northern One: And you do know that people tune into us because they expect a certain level of insight, wit, humour ... dare I say diablerie.

Southern One: You can say it, but I bet you can't spell it.

Northern One: I can say it and spell it. Which is why I do the blurbs. Big words and schtick. And amazing guests. The very best guests in the world. Bar none.

Southern One: Like this one.

Northern One: Yeah. Another world-class guest. On Broken Oars. How do we get them?

Southern One: Because we're a place of insight, intelligence, keen lines of questioning, wit, humour and a certain lightness of touch ...

Northern One: Or they don't listen to us first, don't look us up and by the time the red light's on it's too late for them to get out of it?

Southern One: Well, there is that.

Northern One: And you do know that repetition is the hallmark of good prose; key to a marketing strategy; and also good comedy ...

Southern One: I find you hilarious ...

Northern One: Why, thank you ...

And so we're back, once again, the world's greatest rowing podcast, and we're back for 2024 with a world-class guest. There've been so many of them that you kind of take it for granted now, don't you? Well, you shouldn't. We might have outdone ourselves this time.

Because we're talking to Professor Andy Jones.

For those who don't know, well, you should.

Andrew M Jones is Professor of Applied Physiology in the Department of Sport and Health Sciences. Andy is internationally recognized for his research in the following areas: 1) control of, and limitations to, skeletal muscle oxidative metabolism; 2) causes of exercise intolerance in health and disease; 3) respiratory physiology, particularly the kinetics of pulmonary gas exchange and ventilation during and following exercise; and 4) sports performance physiology and nutrition, particularly in relation to endurance athletics. 

And if that sounds like we've pulled it of Exeter's website, well, we have - but you should know this stuff because if you're into sport, and you're into training properly, and you're still alive and you've been and done any of those things in the last two decades ... the way you train, the way you race and what you do?

That's down to Andy's work.

Southern One: Just tell them that we've got the beetroot guy ...

Northern One: I'm getting to that ...

In other words, we've got the beetroot guy. Andy's work on how dietary nitrate reduces resting blood pressure (eating beetroot), and therefore impacting positively on cardiovascular health and performance is not just robust, but world-leading. He's the man, basically, who actually found a superfood that worked. 

And boy does it work - but tied to what is world-leading (the REF results say so, as do the performance metrics and outcomes in the real world) research is also Andy's long history working in muscle energetics, fatigue and respiratory physiology with some of the world's leading athletes and high performance programmes. 

And we've got him.

So join us for the only conversation you'll ever need about training and nutrition and recovery with the only person you'll ever need to hear talking about it!

Get some!

-----

Enjoyed this episode?

To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.

This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories! 

Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world: www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd

To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to: 

https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb

and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.

This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories! 

Welcome back one and all to Broken Oars Podcast - the Rowing World's best and most informative podcast (bar Crossy's Corner - we'll hear no bad words about that man. He's a legend).

As you know, while the Southern One finishes up a professional qualification the Northern One has been taking his brain out for a spin to talk about poets and poetry.

(Yes, it does sound remarkably like listening to paint drying, doesn't it ... ?)

But fear not, this is the Northern One - a man incapable of uttering a snooze-inducing sentence, finding a subject he can't make a quip or point about, or being boring generally. And it is in that capacity that he's created the perfect series for people to dip into while the nights are long, the air balmy, and the weather perfect for sitting out in the garden and doing some culture.

Yeah.

Cultchah!


Having whistle-stopped through Thomas Hardy and A.E Housman, detoured into how a Brian called Geordie (should that sentence be the other way 'round ... ? Ed) is to blame for guitar heroes and all of their widdle, and then leapt back to look at Charles Dickens ... a theme is emerging ...

That's right:

How did we get here from there.

Or to put it more simply, why Britain today is largely the same as Britain then?

(Isn't this fun? We're learning all about caesuras and enjambments and what happened when and where and to who and asking cool questions! Who said no, when's the rowing stuff coming ... ?).

In this episode we engage with one of the most problematic writers in the canon: Rudyard Kipling.

An Anglo-Indian, with a deep apprehension of the realities and mythologies of Empire, Kipling was more famous in his day than Steve Redgrave (largely because Steve Redgrave hadn't been born then) but is rarely read now.

We learn why; explore why it's a short step from denying or revising books to burning them; and look at why should and what we can learn from engaging with a racist, and imperialist ... and the most important English writer since Shakespeare. We explore how Empire was not a benevolent force for good, or a civilising mission but instead always and forever an economic enterprise; and illustrate how its expansion ran alongside technological expansion - something Kipling was keenly aware of.

Examining Kipling's status as an Anglo-Indian, and thus a second-class person, we look at the way he explored and exposed the myths of Empire to show its realities: the overt racism of The White Man's Burden, the sham of Britain standing alone given its reliance on its connections to the world in Big Steamers; and the people who work alongside or create the technology that sustains the whole endeavour in McAndrew's Hymn and The King. We reclaim Mandalay from Boorish and see how Kipling's wide-ranging work in poetry, short stories, children's stories and novels should be engaged with if we are to overcome our cultural amnesia and beliefs about the missing 300 years of our history that we don't talk about or teach. 

And that's before we get to Tommy - as pertinent now as it was then.

And it's out in time for the weekend? And there's a rowing episode coming out too?

Get some!

Bow? You're a jelly-bellied flag-flapper. Take a tap.

Your favourite comedy duo, and quite possibly the best commentators rowing has ever had on and about the sport of rowing return!

In this episode, following the Southern One's three weeks of constant bugs and the Northern One's ongoing Long Covid we talk about getting back into exercise after illness and injury - and no, it isn't what we used to do: grade two muscle tear? Should be fine tomorrow then? Two weeks in bed with D and V? Shouldn't affect my 2k too much tomorrow.

Being an athlete is a weird thing. For a start, it's an identity - which means when we can't do the thing that defines us, it upsets us and leads us to do crazy things (like not appropriately recover from illnesses and injuries properly). Part of what makes us an athlete - the learned ability to push into pain and in doing so extend our limitations - is the very thing that makes us a danger to ourselves when we've been, as they say in the North, a bit crook.

We talk about graduated returns to training and racing; point out the many times we've failed to follow our own advice; and then skip merrily on to the reality that since Covid participation numbers in sport and exercise, and in rowing, are down. We talk about time, snobbery (not what you think), and ... whisper it ... that doing other sports might just be an option.

Get Some!

-----

Enjoyed this episode?

To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.

This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories! 

Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world: www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd

The world's greatest rowing podcast makes a further claim to be regarded as the world's best sporting podcast by returning with yet another world-class practitioner.

Honestly, how many have we had now?

Hundreds. If not thousands. Hodge. Eric. Sally. Drew. Jack. Jezz. Pete ... the lists are long, the tapestry of episodes and insights vast, colourful and eye-catching.

And following on from Professor Andy Jones, the beetroot guy, we're back with Professor Andy Lane.

A competitive boxer and athlete who transitioned into sports psychology, Andy has been a leading-edge academic and practitioner for over two decades - a man whose work with athletes, academics, and programmes has identified the mental strategies all athletes develop on their journey through their sporting careers and refined how they can be developed, implemented and used by all of us at any stage.

We talk about Andy's own trajectory - his life as a competitive athlete, continued competitive nature, his academic career, work with outlets like the BBC and luminaries like Michael Johnson and James Cracknell, and deep dive into concepts like associate / disassociative training strategies, visualisation, pros and cons of music as a training stimulus, when too much data is too much data, the powers of false positives, the necessity of ownership of process, journey, engagement and outcomes ... and the automation of the sports psychology process.

It's basically your one-stop stop for everything you'll ever need to develop mental strength as an intrinsic part of your physical training programme.

A fascinating and wide-ranging chat with one of the best in the business?

Get some!

-----

Enjoyed this episode?

To purchase a copy of 'Water's Gleaming Gold' with an exclusive Broken Oars Listener discount, please go to https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/waters-gleaming-gold-hb and quote " BROKENOARS " at the checkout page.

This discount code will allow you to buy the book at a 15% discount - and enjoy one of the great rowing stories! 

Buy us a coffee, download a training plan, and support us so we can carry on making Broken Oars Podcast, the best rowing podcast in the world: www.buymeacoffee.com/brokenoarsd

Order a copy of 'The Mystery of the Cambridge Bow' - an original Broken Oars Sherlock Holmes adventure written to celebrate the Oxford / Cambridge Boat Race:

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ai-jackson/the-mystery-of-the-cambridge-bow/paperback/product-m222pkn.html?q=the+mystery+of+the+cambridge+bow&page=1&pageSize=4

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We return!

We return in time for WEHORR (what's left of it); the Boat Race; and a summer regatta season just around the corner with the perfect episode ...

Why?

Because we return with Lucy Denyer - whose Telegraph article on returning to rowing at York recently went viral. Extolling, as it does, the reasons why we row, the joy of moving a boat through flat water and still air (and occasionally in the UK through lumpy water and air that's basically an upright sea with slits in it), and the importance of exercise, community and just getting out there and getting on with it ... ?

Well, we just had to sit down and have a chat.

So join as Lucy takes us through her early rowing experiences on Tyne, the Tyne, the mucky Tyne the Queen of all the rivers with NUBC; and her subsequent shift into life, and an American sojourn that led to a career in journalism that culiminated in an editorial role at The Telegraph (one of the few broadsheets to cover rowing, tbf). Staying active all the while, while dealing with the things all rowers deal with when life starts getting in the way of rowing (work, marriage, children, moving around for career), Lucy talks about her decision to come back; going freelance; rowing and identity; getting on the water again at York (we've all binned a single, right? Right?!?!); and rowing on a river that Lewin I once charged down for Agecroft, complaining that for somewhere that floods everytime it rains it's a very narrow river for an eight to steer down, and the fun she's had since.

And then AI generates some totally random pictures of our interview that gives Lewin and I abs again ...

And it's out in time for the drive to WEHORR, the weekend's events, and the drive to the boathouse tomorrow?

We're too good to you!

Get some!

-----

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Knight of the Realm, Four-time Olympic Champion, ten-time World Champion, Boat Race Winner, Henley Winner, greatest stroke of his generation, Henley Steward, Henley Umpire, Boat Race Umpire, BBC Investigative Journalist, Documentary maker, passionate advocate for sport, and the reason The Northern One started rowing and The Southern One has such a fierce 2k pb ...

Sir Matthew Pinsent.

Our work here is done.

(Mic drop).