The Amateurs by David Halberstam

been. He could literally feel his power increasing. Near the end of a race there was simply more strength to summon. He was also more disciplined than ever and more sure of his love for rowing. When Biglow showed up, only twenty-three at the time, Wood had found him a pleasant, modest young man, and they had begun to row together in practice. One day they had done a series of 2-minute pieces. A piece is a given section of a workout, and pieces are usually done in practice as a series of repetitions. Because Biglow was not supposed to be as good as Wood, Biglow had begun with a little head start. On the first four pieces Wood had passed him, but on the fifth and sixth pieces Wood suddenly realized that he was no longer gaining on Biglow. On the last piece Biglow had realized what was happening and without either of them saying anything, they had started out even.
    That night, Wood had rowed back and sat in the boat-house and thought, "Oh, he's really good. He is very, very good." Later Biglow had come into the boathouse, and Wood had told him he had rowed very well. "You were beating me on some of those pieces today," he had said very quietly. Clearly the challenger had arrived.
    Two days later they had rowed again, doing fifteen-hundred-meter pieces, and Biglow had beaten Wood on all three. Even more ominously for Wood, there had been a double out that day with Shealy and Stone in it. Although it was not a championship double, it was nonetheless a double, with two very accomplished oarsmen in it. In one of the pieces the double had rowed against the two singles. Shealy and Stone had given the two singles head starts, and then gradually the double had started catching up. With five hundred meters to go, Biglow had turned it on, racing all out, and he had managed to stay ahead of the double. Wood, watching, knew he was in serious trouble, but he consoled himself with the fact that though Biglow clearly was a very talented oar, he was nonetheless new at it and had not raced in competition before. That was a very different matter. There were lots of men who looked good in practice and were not quite as good in races. Wood prided himself that his strength was in the races themselves. Wood decided that Biglow would have to wait his turn.
    A few weeks later they had rowed against each other in the New England regional championship in Hanover. In the heat, which neither needed to win, Biglow had been slightly ahead at the end, with both of them coasting. Biglow had turned and said, "Gee, this isn't too hard." The remark had annoyed Wood, who had been content until then to let Biglow win the heat, and Wood had sprinted for the finish. In the final there was room for only three lanes, and Joe Bouscaren had rowed in the third lane. If it was the first time the three of them had ever rowed in singles against each other, it was by no means the last. Wood had gone out very quickly and very hard, at a thirty-eight, an unusually high stroke. He had kept it there for the first five hundred yards, and for all of that he was only three quarters of a length ahead of Biglow. Then in the second five hundred Biglow had almost rowed through Wood. But Wood had held on, determined not to be psychologically defeated, as would be so easy, having put out so much and gotten back so small a lead. With five hundred meters left, when they were almost dead even, Wood started to sprint. That meant Biglow had to respond, and they had rowed almost side by side for five hundred meters, matching stroke for stroke, neither conceding, neither taking the stroke up, each simply trying to put more power into each stroke. It was an almost perfect race, and both Wood and Biglow had been hypnotically fascinated by it. This was the hardest kind of race because there was no way to back down. The pain in Biglow's arms and legs had been so terrible that he had wished that Wood would either surge ahead or fade and spare him all of this.
    Normally, in any race, there is a moment