HARRY MAHON

15 January 1942 to 19 May 2001.
Born Wanganui, New Zealand.

The Gallagher Great Race contests for the Harry Mahon Trophy.

This is in memory of the great man who was one of New Zealand's best rowing coaches. Harry's strong links to both New Zealand and British rowing make this all the more appropriate.

To understand the effect Harry had on people it would be well worth going to the following web site http://www.total.rowing.org.uk/mahon.html

Harry's character and record is best summed up in an obituary that was published by The Times of London on May 24, 2001.

Harry Mahon - Rowing coach who trained the victorious British VIII at last year's Olympics in Sydney.

Harry Mahon who died aged 59, coached the Great Britain VIII to victory at the Sydney Olympics and was largely responsible for Cambridge's dominance of the Boat Race in the last decade.

During the Olympics Mahon already in the advanced stages of cancer and his defiance of his condition was an inspiration to the British crew. Just before the starting gun sounded for the Olympic final one of the crew called out "Remember we're doing this for Harry". The call - and Mahon's meticulous preparation of the crew - had the necessary effect. The VIII surged ahead of the field, held the lead throughout the race, and went on to win the first British Gold Medal in the event since 1912.

But it was at Cambridge University where Mahon had been coach since 1992, that he exerted his most sustained influence. He joined a demoralized Club that had lost all but one of the previous 17 Boat Races, and effected what seemed to be an instantaneous transformation. In the 1993 Boat Race, Cambridge rapidly established a two length lead over Oxford, beginning a winning streak that has since been broken only once. The 1994 Cambridge crew - which beat a Leander Club VIII that included Matthew Pinsent and Stephen Redgrave - was regarded by Mahon as the finest boat he has ever coached.

Harry Mahon was born in Wanganui, New Zealand on January 15, 1942. Had modest success as a lightweight oarsman before taking a post as geography teacher at Melville High School, a state funded day school, a small country town on North Island.

In his mid-twenties Mahon began coaching at the local Waikato Rowing Club and transformed it into one of the most successful clubs in the country. He came to national prominence at the World Championships in Amsterdam in 1977 when in a David and Goliath struggle his unrated coxless four took on a an apparently invincible East German crew and only narrowly missed the Gold Medal. Shortly afterwards, Mahon was entrusted the NZ VIII which he coached to victory in 1982 and 1983. But the acclaim was short lived. When the NZ VIII failed to win a medal at the Olympics in 1984, Mahon was made the scapegoat and found his coaching responsibilities drastically reduced. In 1987 he accepted an invitation to become chief coach of the Swiss national crews and though he found professional success in Switzerland, the blunt speaking New Zealander was never quite at home in he termed "the land of the Cuckoo clock".

The Cambridge University Boat Club provided Mahon with a family atmosphere that he had hitherto lacked. He worked harmoniously with other members of the University coaching team. He took particular pleasure in seeing two of his recent Cambridge protégés, Kieran West and Graham Smith go on to international success winning gold medals at the 2000 Olympics and World Championships respectively.

The recent verging of reverence in which he was held by oarsman was only enhanced by the way in which he dealt with the cancer that was first diagnosed in 1997. Undaunted and lacking in self pity he kept up a punishing coaching schedule with the Great Britain squad, with Cambridge University and latterly with the Radley College crew. Given only months to live at the beginning of 1999, Mahon's strength of will proved indomitable. He went onto run the London Marathon that year and at the Sydney Games was at last able to realise his life long ambition of coaching the Gold Medal-winning Olympic VIII. Rowing was his life and he was coaching at Radley to within days of his death.