Jurgen Grobler on Team GB, Tokyo 2020 and bowing out with his biggest challenge yet

Exclusive: The mastermind behind so much of Great Britain's Olympic success is finally walking away from the sport he loves

Football has Ferguson. Rugby has Woodward. Cycling has Brailsford. All knighted, all household names in their own field, all coaches and managers who have redefined success in their corner of modern British sport. Nobody could surely overshadow or even compare to their accomplishments. Nobody, except for Jurgen Grobler.

The stalwart German mastermind behind Team GB’s relentless rowing success is not just the most victorious coach in the sport’s history, but the most successful Olympic coach of all time too. Thirty-three medals, 22 of them gold. He’s lead the likes of Sir Steve Redgrave, Sir Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell to greatness. His teams have topped the podium at least once at every games he’s attended for the last 40 years. The single blank on his record was Los Angeles in 1984 – only because his East German side boycotted the event due to political turbulence.

However, every journey, no matter how relentlessly triumphant, must eventually come to an end. On 31 July next summer, the final day of the rowing schedule in Tokyo, Grobler turns 74. And when the last boat crosses the line, he says, he’ll bid coaching goodbye.

It’s an unexpected few words towards the end of our interview, just as things are wrapping up. Sportspeople don’t usually like talking openly about retirement, and so you’d expect a routine filler answer that keeps the question at bay. “I think after 2020… I think then I slide out,” he says humbly with a smile, and then a stifled chuckle. “I don’t want to be carried out with a bar. If you get a little bit older you have to be honest.”

The truth is, Grobler has already long broken a retirement promise he made 29 years ago when he first arrived in the UK. Stood before an interview panel – which included a younger Redgrave – as he looked to become the director of the famous Leander Club, the coach claimed that he would only stick around for two more Olympic Games. Atlanta ’96 would be his swansong. Little did he know, he would still be out on the water today, megaphone firmly in hand, his teeth-gritting obsession with victory stronger than ever.

“I try not to hold anything back, because one medal is not enough,” he says. “We want more. So far, I’ve been sharing what people from outside would say are ‘secrets’ or whatever, that’s why I’m still here. I didn’t change up and down the road. I’ve been here now for more than 28 years with the team, and I want the team to succeed again. I have no problems.”

Indeed, with honours in abundance, to many on the outside, there might not seem like any immediate worries. Grobler’s bronzed complexion, unflustered smile and the tranquil backdrop of our conversation – one of Team GB’s training camps on the banks of the Albufeira do Maranhao reservoir in Portugal – might suggest the team are on a relaxing holiday. But in reality, he is speaking at time where two colossal factors are converging in British rowing, and the calm waters behind him harbour his biggest challenge yet.

After Rio 2016, nine of the men’s 12 gold medallists called time on their career, and Grobler’s workload started to amass alongside preparations for his own retirement. Though inspiring Britain’s next generation of champions is something he has mastered time and time again, this next step will truly mark his legacy. If he fails, and leaves a successor to pick up the pieces, it could have a devastating impact on funding.

Grobler admits he is planning to retire after 2020 (SAS/Getty)

Just a year later, Team GB ended a run that would’ve surely seen Grobler’s heart sink a little. At the World Rowing Championships in Sarasota, they failed to clinch a gold medal in any Olympic-class event for the first time since the very summer the coach had joined the team in 1990. A repeat performance followed in 2018, making it clear that there’s a long way to go.

“I would say of course we are critical of ourselves,” says Grobler, still bearing a sanguine disposition. “The expectation from our fans, from everybody, is there, and that’s quite wide… people are expecting success. But it’s not always quite as easy, more insider can understand how it works. If you lose Andy Murray you can’t straight away replace him, or a top football player, the team also a little bit different.

“I think we have the ambition to come back [and succeed] with those athletes. They have the heart, the will to do it. They want to work on our tradition, and our tradition was always having also success. So I think we are on a good way, but it takes a little bit of time.”

The coach pauses to word his English carefully. Speaking to him is rare, and access to training sessions out here is also unheard of. The departure of performance director Sir David Tanner after Rio, despite being another setback, has brought a relaxation on media restrictions, and sources around the camp say this is the first time they’ve seen national publications watch them train at their base in Avis.

The daily schedule out here comes with a heavy focus on data, which is standard for mosts sports that live and die by the numbers. Grobler won his first Olympic medal through East Germany's Wolfgang Guldenpfennig in 1972 thanks to stopwatches, his love of the science behind rowing, and what would now be considered raw endurance training. In the decades since, data and sophisticated technology have become far more significant players in victory. Thanks to years of working with analytics partner SAS, Great Britain's coaches are all aware of what a gold medal athlete looks like in data form – though that can change with each Olympiad. They can use that vital information to compare cautiously and produce new champions from talented youngsters, cherry-picking with educated prudence.

Grobler is not a man of many words, especially when he’s not being interviewed, remaining a mysteriously closed book as he watches quietly over his athletes. But don’t be fooled. His introverted approach is all part of what makes him such an admirable mentor. He knows just how everyone ticks; when to push them, when to give them space. It’s all in his head. Naturally, he also knows when he’s got the perfect recipe for success. If a rower has the right attitude, and finds a rhythm with their team and their coach, Grobler claims he can take them “through the fire” and on to glory.

“They will do everything,” he says with a swiping gesture. “Having done the right training, doing the right thing, to the right time then I’m sure they will be competitive. It’s always a gold medal, of course deep down that should be your target, that should be your aim, but you’re not the only one in the world. At the same time there are the Australians, the Germans, the Italians, they do the same thing. We want to be that little bit better.

“I don’t want to let them down. I try my best, from my position, with all the experience I have… but it’s a new generation. They have new strengths, new weaknesses. So I have to find their biggest potential and work with them. There’s no point to say ‘Steve Redgrave did that’ and ‘he did that’."

Redgrave, one of Great Britain’s most famous athletes who won three of five consecutive Olympic gold medals for Britain under Grobler, is now the performance director of China’s national rowing team. After three decades, he still considers his old coach to be a very close friend, and firmly believes Grobler is the most successful coach of all time, across every discipline.

“There just isn’t anybody in the sport, or in any sport, who has had the consistent results that Jurgen has,” he tells The Independent. “You can certainly argue for others being better coaches, but there isn’t a coach out there in any sport who has got better results. And his career is still going.”

Redgrave speaks glowingly of Grobler (Getty) (GETTY IMAGES)

Redgrave’s tone and responses suggest the tributes should probably be held back until next summer when Grobler officially steps down – the words of a man who knows himself not to make bold statements about retirement, having famously said to “shoot him” if he was near a boat again after winning gold in Atlanta, only to return again four years later. But he is adamant whatever Grobler does next, that fierce energy will follow.

“When you spend time with him he’s still got this freshness and determination. But sportspeople, specifically Olympians, we look at things in a four-year cycle. If you start looking into what you’ll be doing afterwards in your retirement or carrying on to the next Olympics, that’s taking away the focus you need to be able to deliver at the next games.

“I’m sure whatever avenue he chooses next he’ll do it to the highest level. If that’s just pottering about in the garden growing plants, I’m sure he would be the best plant-grower and have the best garden in Henley. Because that’s the intensity and the passion he has for whatever he does.”

“Where they are now is pretty similar to where we were in 1990,” he adds. “But the reality is the team now is so much stronger, they have so many people who are knocking on the door. They are at a turning point, but they’ve still got three men’s boats that can win gold next year at Tokyo.”

Athletes and fellow coaches have all acknowledged that there will be a profound difference when Grobler steps away. So much so that time is precious around him. Brendan Purcell, who replaced Tanner as GB’s performance director, says “each day is a school day” with Grobler, as every conversation in offices or on car journeys can turn into a lesson, absorbing pearls of wisdom from 50 years of coaching excellence while he’s still around. Jacob Dawson, one of many squad members selected using SAS data, claims working with the German has been “surreal”, and that the team were all collectively vying to win him his last gold medal.

Jacob Dawson is part of a new generation of rowers Grobler hopes can carry on Team GB's success (SAS/Getty)

In January this year Grobler’s job was made even harder. With less than 18 months to his final games he stepped in as the women’s team coach. At a time when he was meant to be taking a back seat and finding a successor, instead he has doubled the amount of boats to look after. Without serial gold medallists Katherine Graigner, Helen Glover, and Heather Stanning, who have also retired since 2016, and a similar showing at the World Championships to the men over the last two years, there isn’t a moment to be wasted on or off the water.

Though technically it will also double his chance of medals in Tokyo, Grobler knows he will need to summon all of his coaching magic to get both sides anywhere near the podium, and that’s before he hands the baton on to the next coach that follows, which he says he cares as much about as winning before he leaves.

“I want to succeed, but it’s not so much what I do,” he says. “I want to do it with the athletes, with the team. We want to be successful. My thinking at the end of the day is not important. If the team is successful and can carry on that’s fantastic. And [an admirable legacy] would be even 10 times better.”

“Yeah, I think, put everything in,” Grobler adds with a grin. “If [people say] ‘when he was there we’ve been successful and now we fall down’ then I would be not happy. I cannot live with that. I know what I have done. I think so far I have a good thinking in myself. I’m not so sad.”

This interview was made possible by SAS, the official analytics partner of British Rowing. Further information at www.sas.com