Water Has No Memory

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WINNING STREAKS IN ROWING

WORDS DR DAVID SCHARY

When New Zealand's Eric Murray and Hamish Bond crossed the line in the 2016 Olympics, they secured their 69th consecutive victory in the men’s pair – a staggering winning streak that had dominated the sport for nearly a decade. No one had touched them since 2007.

Murray and Bond aren't alone in rowing's pantheon of seemingly invincible champions. Sir Steve Redgrave's five Olympic golds spanning an unthinkable 16 years. The American women's eight and their 11-year reign of terror. These weren't just winning athletes and crews – they redefined what domination meant in our sport.

But was their extraordinary success simply a product of superior talent and training, or did the streak itself become a weapon? Did the psychological weight of all those wins somehow propel them further ahead of the competition?

We've all heard about momentum in sport – that elusive, intangible force that supposedly builds with each win. Skeptics (and there are many) dismiss momentum as a convenient narrative constructed to explain away what really comes down to skill, preparation, and occasionally, luck.

Rowing brings this debate into sharp focus. Our sport demands brutal physical effort alongside perfectly synchronized teamwork. When you are part of a crew on a winning streak, you're walking a psychological tightrope.

On one side, the powerful belief in your invincibility. On the other, the dangerous complacency that can follow success. All while expectations grow larger with each win, and your rivals become increasingly desperate to be the ones to finally take you down.

I've found that the truth about streaks lies somewhere in the messy space between perception and reality. Ultimately what matters isn’t the streak itself, but what athletes make of it. Momentum isn't magical, it's mental. And in rowing, where races are won and lost by fractions of a second, that mentality can make all the difference.