So they came round and they said to me would I sign a non resuscitation form? Which I did. “I wasn’t responding to taking the oxygen. Forcing my lungs to work, really,” Dwan recalls.

“They were putting 100% oxygen into me to keep my lungs working. The next hours were a harrowing experience for Dwan, as he was rushed into the emergency ward and given oxygen. I went into A&E and they diagnosed me with the coronavirus.” “And my wife called 999 and the ambulance came. “I was sitting at the table and fell under it and couldn’t move,” he said. In March 2020, Dwan’s life changed in an instant. Then I lost the Olympic final, which would have been the one I’d have sooner won!”įour years later, Dwan would again be selected for the 1972 Olympics in Munich, placing ninth in the single sculls competition.īut it was the memories of Mexico that gave him strength when he needed it most. “I’d gone from winning my novice sculling race two years before, and I went from the novice sculls to the Olympic final without losing a race. It wasn’t the result he had hoped for, but it marked the end of a “whirlwind” period for the 19-year-old, who had started racing seriously only two years earlier. In a race won by the Netherlands’ Henri Jan Wienese, Dwan placed sixth in the Olympic final. When October approached, the English rower arrived in Mexico, acclimatising for two weeks as the team adjusted to the altitude before they were able to begin training again for Olympic competition.įinally it was time for the single sculls competition to begin. We’d do an hour’s circuit and then rapidly drop it back down to sea level… it was really, really hard.” They put us in a room and they pumped oxygen in to make it the equivalent of 10,000 feet. “And then we went to another place over in Weybridge, an oxygen room for airline pilots. They used to put us on a treadmill or put us on the bike, with oxygen masks on us and we would have to do pieces,” remembers Dwan. “We started to do testing at West Middlesex Hospital. Little did he know that the training he undertook at that time would be an experience he would call upon years later when faced with the greatest battle of his life. In order for Dwan to be ready for the conditions of Mexico City, he needed to prepare himself physically for an altitude of 2,240 metres – a gruelling challenge for anyone not used to competing at those heights. Picture by 2012 Getty Images Oxygen-fuelled altitude trainingįinding the right training ground was only a part of the battle athletes faced when preparing for the upcoming Games. So I spent many an hour over there doing 500m, turning around, 500m more – as much as I could.” I found a bit of space over on the Grand Union Canal that could actually give me still water rowing. “England didn’t have a 2,000 metre course at that time. But finding the optimal conditions to train in the UK proved to be a difficult task, as the conditions the rowers would face in Mexico could not be replicated at home. Success in the Olympics was heavily dependent on an athlete’s performance peaking at just the right moment. “I think the Mexico Olympics were in October, so we had to prepare for the summer to get qualified and then at the end of our rowing season, we had to go back to the gym to prepare for the Olympics.” “It was a dream come true, as it always is for sports people,” Dwan recalls. So it gave me so much time.”įrom those familial beginnings, his love for the sport of rowing grew until he was competing at European level and finally, at 19 years of age, selected for the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games. Everything was fine for me because I could work tide times when everything was like a madhouse, but for the rest of the period I could go sculling or I could go to the gym.

“I worked on the River Thames as a Waterman. It was on the same river that his ancestors had plied their trades that Dwan’s talent for rowing first came to light. For over 500 years, his family have worked on London’s River Thames as Watermen and Lightermen, up until today when they continue to run the Eel Pie Island Slipways business. Ken Dwan’s connection to the water goes back a long way.

Eel pie island slipways