Top Strokes

Karl Adam, the 216-lb. braunschweiger-built coach of West Germany's Ratzeburg Rowing Club, isn't boasting when he says, "I have shown I can produce champions year after year."

Since 1953, when he became Ratzeburg coach, Adam's piston-smooth crew has won eight German championships, three European titles, one world title (1962), an Olympic gold medal and an Olympic silver medal. Drawing on his experience as a physics teacher, he designed a tulip-shaped oar that gets a better bite on the water, conceived the idea of rigging the No. 4 and 5 oars on the starboard side of the shell to reduce veering. He also became the first coach to put his men on a weight-lifting regimen to build shoulder muscles. The only thing that Adam didn't do was learn how to live with the few defeats that came his way. Last year, after Ratzeburg narrowly lost out in the Olympic finals to Philadelphia's hot-shot Vesper Boat Club, Adam locked himself up in a room for a full day.

Two weeks ago, Adam got his chance for revenge. At England's 126-year-old Henley Royal Regatta, the Ascot of crew racing, Vesper knocked off Harvard, the best college crew in the U.S. In the finals, to determine the best crew in the world, it was Ratzeburg against Vesper. Ratzeburg led all the way, finished half a length ahead, set a new Henley record of 6 min. 16 sec. for the one-mile and 550-yd. course.

That evened the score with Vesper, but it didn't settle anything. Taking up an offer from the Gillette Safety Razor Co.'s German branch, Vesper agreed to enter the Ratzeburg Regatta and race once again against the powerful West German crew. Last week, on a windless lake close to the little (pop. 12,123) town of Ratzeburg near the Danish frontier, Karl Adam's husky boys got off with a fast-chopping 50 strokes a minute, built up a one-half-length lead before slowing the pace to 41 strokes. At times, the Vespers pumped away at more than 40 strokes, but never succeeded in closing the distance. Ratzeburg glided past the finish line of the 2,000-meter course a neat 9 ft. ahead.

Having proved twice that his crew is the best in the world, Coach Adam, 53, is thinking of retiring. "I'm getting older," he says, "and an older coach doesn't have the same contact and relationship with his boys as a younger coach. There isn't the same enthusiasm."

Maybe the Vespers can find a job for him.

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