“Good coxes win races” – GB’s Henry Fieldman on Tokyo 2020, coxing and big expectations

Being small can have its perks, and for Henry Fieldman it has helped him on his way to Tokyo 2020. 

The experienced coxswain has been in the Great Britain team for seven years now and he will be the one to lead the men’s eight for Team GB  at this year’s Olympics.

Too small for rugby, Fieldman opted for rowing instead.

“On day one at school they lined us up in height order and I was at the far end of the line and that’s how it all started,” he said.

Soon Fieldman was engulfed in the world of rowing: “I found that I was learning more about myself and life and everything when I was in the boathouse more than when I was in classes.”

Rowing is one of Great Britain’s most successful sports at the summer Olympics and the men’s eight succeeded at Rio 2016, taking the gold for the first time since Sydney 2000.

The 31-year-old cox will have to play an instrumental part if he is to guide the GB boat to Olympic glory in Tokyo.

But what makes a good cox?

Trust.

The trust of the team is what separates an average cox from a good one, Fieldman believes: “The guys pulling on the oars, the pain that they go through is immense, and they need to have full trust that what you say is accurate and honest.

“There’s a lot of anecdotes about coxes who pretend that there is less distance left than what there is to try and get more out of the guys but I’m really not a fan of that kind of thing. 

“If you do that once, maybe you get a little more out of someone one time but that’s never going to work again because you’ve violated that trust.

“I’ve got enough respect for my guys to know that they will end themselves by the finish line, they don’t need me to lie to them.”

Apart from that, there is no set formula to create a good cox but Fieldman stresses the importance of implementing your own style.

“When you are coxing your personality comes out which makes it very individual and it makes it very hard to properly try to replicate or copy what someone else is doing, you have to really be yourself.

“On race day, you are effectively the driver of a race car. You are controlling the tactics, you are steering the boat, you are feeding back into the guys what is happening, where they are at in the race, how the race is unfolding and delivering a race plan.”

“Good coxes win races.” And that is what Henry Fieldman will be hoping to do in Tokyo.

Fieldman and the rest of the GB eight will be striving for the success of the previous Olympiad but that is easier said than done – East Germany were the last team to win the men’s eight event at consecutive Olympics back in 1980. 

Speaking about the achievements of his predecessors, Fieldman highlights how the new team had high expectations placed upon them and they soon became the subject of negative media attention.

“The eight before us in 2016 won the Olympics and there was a lot of experience in that boat. A lot of people, because they were so successful, retired after that race in Rio. So, we were quite a new group of guys,” Fieldman explained.

“We were pretty unsuccessful that year. We learnt a lot of lessons, it was hard.

“You never really imagine having negative media attention so when we started racing and we weren’t winning gold after gold there was a lot of stuff online about us not doing very good.

“I guess in that way, in contrasting the last Olympics team to our team, the media expects a standard that we aren’t always providing.

“But we are slowly getting better and I think anything the media says is not really important to us but it is something that we are exposed to.”

Despite this, Fieldman’s team continued to improve and by 2019 they were medalling at every regatta, including a third-place finish at the World Championships to secure qualification for Tokyo 2020.

“Then you have a day where you do win and everyone is suddenly like, ‘this is amazing’ and everyone wants to know what you thought and everyone wants your autograph and what have you – well, maybe not quite!”

But there have been positives to following in the footsteps of a gold medal winning team and Fieldman adds that the GB alumni from the last Olympic cycle have been incredibly supportive.

“Any opportunity they get, they are just trying to give us confidence and trying to be helpful and supportive in any way,” Fieldman said.

“Having such success from recent teams probably helps us. We have that experience being fired at us in a helpful way. Sometimes people draw negative comparisons but it is generally pretty good.”

Fieldman was the spare in the team in Rio 2016, with Phelan Hill as the cox at the time, and he explains that it was hard at first moving into a new team: “It was hard with getting to grips with. Like, okay we are not quite the top guys anymore, but that was also fun, it was a new challenge, a new dynamic.”

Now the only focus for the Great Britain’s men’s eight is Tokyo 2020.

“It [Tokyo 2020] is every other thought. Sometimes every thought,” Fieldman declares.

“Since the Olympics were in London, all the way back in 2012, I was dreaming of winning gold.

“The first rowing race I ever saw was  the Olympics when the GB eight won gold back in 2000. It has been something that I’ve always admired since I started the sport, but since 2012 it has been a real goal of mine.”

“It’s even hard to say, it’s just so big, even saying it.”