Rob Waddell felt like he was 'rowing in mud'. Photo / Greg Bowker
The eyes gave it away.
Timing can be everything in sport, and in life, and Rob Waddell's was all wrong at Lake Karapiro yesterday.
For a man who has always presented a self-contained image, he was left to rue terrible luck, then had to explain a deeply personal
medical condition away to a pile of microphones and cameras.
This was not how his bid to regain his Olympic single sculls spot was supposed to end, beaten by lengths in the deciding head-to-head with Mahe Drysdale, a desperately flat ending to the most compelling piece of New Zealand sports drama in years.
Early in the race his heart flew up to over 200 beats a minute, which had him feeling "like rowing in mud".
He first experienced the irregular heartbeat in 1995. He managed it through his 2000 Olympic gold medal campaign at Sydney with medication but had been untroubled through his America's Cup sailing years, putting it down to a different form of exercise - grinding rather than sculling.
"I haven't had an episode for two or three years. It's cruel how it happened in that race," he said.
The loser of Waddell's battle with Drysdale was to be steered towards another Olympic boat, most likely the double scull or coxless pair. Waddell didn't want to speculate yesterday. He wanted to go and lie down and wait for his heart to settle down.
Waddell yesterday insisted he always wanted a first-past-the-post system to separate two great athletes and had no beef with Drysdale winning the spot, only the fact he was denied an even chance.
"I didn't want to disclose it publicly, I didn't want be talking about it today," he said of his condition.
And with that he was gone, with dignity intact, to be with family and friends, but alone in his private anguish.
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