Richard 'Dick' Tonks is the Scotty Bowman and Coach K of rowing rolled into one. Elk Lake-based Rowing Canada has scored a major coup by hiring the Kiwi legend to coach the national men’s team.
Tonks has guided New Zealand crews to seven Olympic medals, including six golds, and 25 world championship medals, including 13 golds. He was named world rowing coach of the year in 2005, 2010 and 2012.
No other coach has won the award more than two times. Tonks has also won the Murray Halberg Award as New Zealand coach of the year, across all sports, five times and been a nominee 12 times.
“We’ve pulled in a great one. [Tonks] will be a huge assest to our group. His record is unparalleled. Not just in terms of Olympic medals, but Olympic gold medals,” said Iain Brambell, high-performance director for Rowing Canada.
“He will instill that mentality and philosophy and deliver that championship attitude we have missed the past few years.”
Tonks, who as an athlete won Olympic silver at Munich 1972 in the New Zealand four, will reside in Greater Victoria and take up his duties at the national training centre on Elk Lake by the end of this month.
“I am looking forward to working with the Canadian rowers,” said Tonks, in a statement.
“Canada has a strong legacy in rowing and I look forward to helping them write their next chapter,” added the 66-year-old native of Whanganui, who was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Rowing Canada is in a major rebuild on Elk Lake, after slipping to a lone medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics, won by the now-retired women’s lightweight doubles silver-medallists Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee of Victoria.
Rowing used to be a major medal producer for Canada, having accumulated the second-highest number of gold medals for this nation in the Summer Olympics with nine, trailing only track and field’s 14. Rowing has also won the third-most total medals for Canada in the Summer Olympics with 41, behind only track and field’s 60 and swimming’s 49.
Because of its previous medal prowess, rowing was the most heavily funded Canadian summer sport, having received $17 million from the federal Own the Podium program in the Olympic quadrennial from London 2012 to Rio 2016. That, however, is expected to be dramatically slashed in the quadrennial leading to Tokyo 2020 due to the lone medal at Rio 2016.
Canada also had just one medal, in the women’s eight, at the 2017 world championships in Florida under new Canadian female team head coach Dave Thompson, who is also a Kiwi.
But it’s the pre-2016 pedigree that Rowing Canada believes influenced Tonks to take up the challenge of returning Canada to greatness on the men’s side.
“It speaks to Canada’s rowing lineage and history that we can draw the attention of one of the greatest coaches in the world,” said Brambell, who drew a parallel between Tonks and former Elk Lake coaching legend Mike Spracklen.
“Mike Spracklen was able to make you do something beyond what you thought you were capable of doing,” said Brambell, a Brentwood Bay product and three-time Olympian, who was bronze medallist at Beijing 2008 with the Canadian lightweight four.
“We want to bring that back.”
Rowing Canada believes that in Tonks, it has just the right person to do that.
