After eight years in Rowing New Zealand exile one of our most successful Olympic coaches, Dick Tonks, is back coaching for the national sporting organisation.
The 72-year-old has been brought in as the on-water coach for the new Rowing New Zealand performance hub based out of Waikato Rowing Club. He'll be working with a small group of under-23 athletes for a pilot programme this summer.
Tonks' old school techniques have been well documented and awareness of athlete welfare has changed a lot since he was last involved in high performance sport in this country, meaning talk of bringing him back caused some concern.
"When we first brought up his name as an option there were a few raised eyebrows so we talked through where we were at and what the purpose was, and how we were going to run it and what structures we had and support around it," Rowing New Zealand athlete development manager Janey Charlton said.
His success is hard to deny having helped Rob Waddell, Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell, Mahe Drysdale, Hamish Bond and Eric Murray to Olympic titles among others.
But those medals came in the different high performance environment of more than a decade ago.
"He produced results. His process and his methodology were very good, but everything else was bloody terrible," Murray said.
"His behaviour and way that he coached was really a culture of fear.
"Famous words came out of his mouth like 'this is a dictatorship and I'm the dictator'. When you've got comments like that coming out, it's like, okay, is that what we're in store for?"
Tonks last worked with Rowing New Zealand in 2015 but he left the organisation under controversial circumstances after he was found to be coaching Chinese athletes without his employer's permission.
Since then he's worked internationally but more recently he coached at Cambridge High School while his daughter was there and from that, came this new opportunity.
Rowing New Zealand said he's always been very good at making a boat go fast and it's put things in place to support him.
He'll be responsible for the on-water coaching only, with everything else taken care of by another coach. The programme will be overseen by Charlton.
"I think we're playing to the strengths. We want to create the ideal environment," Charlton said.
"We've got someone whose strengths are this, and someone whose strengths are this and if they can work together, then it should create a really awesome opportunity for our athletes."
Murray said if they can find the magic recipe, it's worth it.
"I think if you find the right role for him in the right environment, we can use that expertise. I think for New Zealand in any of our sports we do need to keep our talent in New Zealand."
The pilot programme is underway and goes through until February.
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