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Rower – Richard Archibald
The pursuit of competing at his second Olympics hasn’t been an easy road for Sport Northern Ireland funded athlete Richard Archibald. Sixth in the final of the men’s lightweight fours in Athens four years ago was followed by a silver medal at the 2005 World Rowing Championships and then bronze 12 months later.
Everything it seemed, was ticking over nicely for the Coleraine rower. Then came disruption and chaos within the Irish camp. Gearoid Towey decided he needed a break from the sport in 2007; the new crew couldn’t find the speed they needed and a 12th place finish at the World Championships in Munich last September meant they missed out on automatic Olympic qualification, a tough pill to swallow.
“Anger, disappointment and a sense of loss were probably my initial reactions at the 2007 World Championships. I felt that if I blamed anyone else, the same mistakes would happen in Olympic year, whereas accepting some blame meant I had to pick myself up, do some soul-searching and formulate a new strategy to ensure history did not repeat itself,” explained Archibald.
“The winter was therefore very difficult. Prior to the Athens Olympics we had qualified the boat in 2003, and then spent 2004 challenging for a seat in the boat, knowing that selection would lead to racing in the Olympics. This winter however was uncertain, with changes of management and coaching, athletes and training. In December a series of training camps began in Seville that would consume two to three weeks in each of the following months. Three trips to Seville were followed by training in Aviza (Portugal), Dublin, Piediluco (Italy) and Cork. During this time the athletes got used to the new coach, John Holland, and he got to know us, while the number of athletes shrank from 10 to six, filling seats in the two Olympic class boats, the lightweight four and heavyweight double.
Training intensified as the months progressed, however there was a better response from the athletes to the training than in the prior season, that had led to our poor World Championship result.”
There would be one more chance to get to Beijing. Two places were up for grabs at the final qualifying regatta in Poznan, Poland. There was little room for error and with just a week to go Holland would make a tough decision, replacing Eugene Coakley with Cathal Moynihan.
“We were very relieved to find ourselves finishing 5th at the first World Cup regatta in the lightweight four. Back in the A-final (top 6 crews) was a good start for us. The Lucerne World Cup gave us a 6th place finish, consolidating our earlier result, but raising questions about how we could move on to where we wanted to be, standing on the podium in Beijing. Now we, or more correctly our coach, had a tough decision to make. We had only two weeks to the qualification regatta in Poland. We could stay as we were, pretty certain to qualify, but unsure if we could move on to challenge for medals in China, or we could risk it all with an untried combination (a crew change) at the qualifier, but with the long-term potential to improve. Those two weeks proved more stressful than was helpful at that stage of the season, but the decision was made, our crew would change!”
Along with the German boat, Archibald, Towey, Moynihan and Paul Griffin secured Ireland’s place for Beijing. Only Moynihan will be making his Olympics debut whilst Archibald, he’ll use his experience of four years ago to make sure nothing is left to chance in the preparations or the execution of what he and the others want to achieve at Shunyi.
“The target is to improve consistently throughout this year, never easing-off or levelling out. Other than that the plan is to just treat it like any other championship, which worked well for us in Athens. You tend to train and relax in the same way as on any other training camp, and because we remain quite isolated from the real world, we don’t know what is being said in the media. You do of course have to avoid the temptation of McDonalds or the bottomless freezers of Magnums at every meal, but we have good will power!”
The lightweight four class is one of the most competitive in world rowing and Archibald could face a showdown in the final with the current world champions Great Britain and fellow Coleraine INST pupil Richard Chambers.
“There are 13 crews in the Olympic event, so far fewer than last years World Championships. Every crew will be the same average weight; 70kg per man, so physically there will be little to separate us. That is what makes the racing so close. The Danes are double Olympic champions, Britain are current World champions, while the French and Chinese were the 2005 and 2006 champions respectively. These, along with the Italians and of course the late qualifying Germans should be our main opposition. Ultimately we train to focus on our strengths, so when it comes to racing the aim is to finish the 2000 metres as quickly as possible, and then look up to see if it was enough to win,” explained Archibald.
“I think it is a great achievement for Coleraine Academical Institution to have three former pupils that have gone on to success at Olympic level at the same time. The boat club at the school is small, but the work of Sid Grey and Bobby Platt when I was there inspired me, and even after I left school they have been very supportive of my rowing career.”
To get to this level requires commitment and throughout his career Archibald has received plenty of motivation.
“I don’t really have a Lance Armstrong style hero that has inspired me in the dark winter days, although Steve Redgrave’s achievements were phenomenal. I am inspired more by the people who have helped me and believed in me along the way, when they had no reason to. The coaches at CAI that told me I could do something special, the rowers in Belfast who took me under their wing when I moved to university and the scullers who let me train with them and lent me boats. This list goes on and on and unfortunately these are the people who never get mentioned and perhaps don’t even realise the significance that their words and actions had on me. Of course to counter that there are those who questioned what I was doing and said that I would never achieve much in rowing so I am fuelled by those memories too and do my best to prove them wrong at every opportunity!”
When asked of his hopes for Beijing, Archibald simply replied, “To win.”
And why not? The process to get there was tough, so what else is there left to do.
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