Dick Tonks, regarded as one of the best rowing coaches in the world.
Dick Tonks, regarded as one of the best rowing coaches in the world.
There has always been a flint-like edge to rowing coach Dick Tonks and he never suffered fools.
But this Whanganui-born and educated oarsman has carved out an enviable record as one of the best rowing coaches in the world.
Richard (Dick) Tonks has won the Halberg Awards' coach of the year five times - more than any other coach in the award's history - and been a finalist twelve times.
He has also been awarded world rowing coach of the year three times since its inception in 2002, the only person to have won the award more than once.
And in the 2003 New Year Honours, Tonks was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to rowing.
Born in February 1951, he has at times been NZ's national coach and a former rower who won a silver medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In his coaching career he has coached crews to a total of 25 World Championship medals - including 13 gold - and seven Olympic medals, six of which were gold.
Action from the Tonks Small Boats race on the Whanganui River during last year's 2017 Winter Series rowing competition.
His father Alan was an accomplished rower and coach, and his influence was probably a major factor in Dick taking up rowing at Wanganui Boys' College. In 1970 he rowed for Otago in and earned a place on the national team in 1971.
The following year he was strokee of the Kiwi coxless four, a crew that won silver at Munich, beaten by half a boat-length by the East German crew.
Tonks returned to coaching in 1989 when he was asked to coach a women's four at the Union club, in Whanganui. In 1994 world champion scullers Philippa Baker and Brenda Lawson asked Tonks to coach them in the double, leading to gold at Indianapolis, bronze at Tampere in 1995 and making the final at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.
After this, Tonks was coaching Rob Waddell, who would go on to win gold in the single scull at Cologne in 1998 and St Catharines in 1999 before taking the gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Tonks has been influential in the careers of rowers such as Olympic medallists Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, Mahé Drysdale, Nicky Coles, Juliette Haigh, Hamish Bond and Eric Murray. He has been the New Zealand rowing coach at the Olympics in Atlanta, Athens, Sydney, Beijing and London.
His contract with Rowing New Zealand ended in December 2015 after a public fallout over him having coached top Chinese rowers without having asked for permission from his employer. An agreement was reached which saw Tonks carry on as Drysdale's coach and the women's double sculls Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. Drysdale won gold.
On his coaching style, Tonks is reported to have said, "good coaching is a dictatorship and I am a dictator". He later admitted to saying this during "a very bad year". He also holds that his relationship with his athletes is a professional one, stating: "I'm their coach, not their friend."
