Olympics: Making Drysdale flag bearer was 'nuts'

The team management was "nuts" to appoint sculler Mahe Drysdale as New Zealand's flag bearer for the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics.

This is the view of Dunedin sports scientist, coach, professional trainer and New Zealand champion rower Kerry Goodhew.

"Mahe clearly should have won gold had he been healthy," Goodhew said yesterday.

"It was a poor and foolish decision to allow Mahe to lead the opening ceremony."

Goodhew said that decision meant throwing away the gold medal and a million or more dollars of taxpayer money that was given to Drysdale over the past four years by Sparc.

He speaks from experience of rowing at the top level in New Zealand.

He won two national titles himself and later coached four crews in Auckland and Invercargill to titles at the national championships.

"By the time an athlete arrives at the Olympics they need to be fresh and bouncing out of their skin," Goodhew explained.

"Coaches usually have the job of reining them in from doing stupid and risky things. If everything is right, the athlete will think they are bullet proof. But the reality is different.

"The athlete is already on a tightrope of peak physical performance, a time when the immune system is vulnerable," he said.

"An athlete as valuable as Mahe should have been kept away from crowds of people in the sauna-like, virus-cooking environment of the main stadium.

"Waiting with 5000 other athletes for five hours for the opening ceremony was absolutely nuts. A basic understanding of sports science and sports medicine should have alerted the team management to this.

"You don't use rare specimens like Mahe and the Olympics for casual trial-and-error learning experiments. You get it right or else you should get sacked."

Goodhew puts the blame on the team management.

"The fault for that loss and what could have been must be laid fully on the amateur decision making by the Olympic team management," Goodhew said.

"The management and coaches of the rowing team should not have given permission for Drysdale to face this ordeal the day before his heat."

Reports from Beijing indicate that Drysdale first suffered from the stomach virus 48 hours after the opening ceremony.

This is a normal time for a virus to germinate in the body.

Chef de mission Dave Currie admitted it was possible, but insisted he and Drysdale had no regrets about the big single sculler performing the role.

Currie said team medical staff still had not resolved what caused Drysdale to fall badly ill in the days after the opening ceremony, when he lost 4kg and required an intravenous drip 48 hours before his brave row for bronze.

"Was it a factor? We'll never know," Currie said.

"Mahe is not saying at all, 'I wish I hadn't done it'. He's still telling me it's a marvellous thing and he's pleased he did it."

New Zealand won three golds in Beijing, equal with its efforts in Tokyo, Seoul and Athens.

A 100% fit Drysdale was a short-priced favourite, and victory would have made New Zealand's gold haul inferior only to its eight in Los Angeles in 1984.

Drysdale was required to wear the traditional, heavy Maori cloak as part of his flagbearing duties on a steamy Beijing evening, thereby running the risk of dehydration ahead of his heat the following afternoon.

"He was hydrating but he would have lost some fluid that night. We're never going to know," Currie said.

"Athletes at that stage of their preparation, all of them, are on a knife edge and their immune systems are down."

Most of Drysdale's rowing team-mates who had heats the next day chose not to march at the Bird's Nest, and remained at their hotel near the Shunyi venue.

Drysdale stayed the night of the opening ceremony in the Olympic Village then rejoined his fellow rowers in their bubble.

Rowing high performance manager Andrew Matheson said it was the "million-dollar question" as to whether the flagbearing role caused Drysdale's illness, but admitted the night in the Olympic Village heightened the risk.

"In an environment like this where you're climbing on a bus with 50 to 60 other athletes on a daily basis, you're in a dining hall with 5000 people and you're in a New Zealand house that's got 100-odd people in it. The chances are obviously greater to get some sort of illness," he said.

Currie said the hygiene in the village was excellent.

Swimmer Moss Burmester was the only other of New Zealand's 182 athletes to fall ill, but not as seriously as Drysdale.

The athletics team was managed by Dunedin's Raylene Bates and it stayed in Hong Kong and did not attend the opening ceremony.

Gold medallist Valerie Vili came straight from her training camp in Queensland to Beijing shortly before she competed.