Rowing should get on its bike, says Greg Searle Then you look at cycling and think how adventurous and different they are: how much these guys learn and take risks and do different things. Men's rowing doesn't take risks and do different things. The 2012 Olympics represented a new departure for British rowing because the women outshone the men. Under the guidance of head coach Paul Thompson - who also looks after the lightweight crews - there were golds for the women's pair, the women's double-scull and the women's lightweight double-scull. "You have to ask, "What are the women's coaches doing that is different?"" Searle said. Thompson delegates a lot of authority to the coaches of the individual crews - Paul Reedy for the women's lightweight double, for example, and Robin Williams for the women's pair. I think they have more autonomy to decide what is best for their athletes. On the men's side, I'm 40 years old and I was doing exactly what Stan Louloudis was doing as a 20-year-old, which is exactly what Ric Egington was doing as a perfect physical specimen to row. It's not necessarily the ideal way to get the best out of everybody, and there were three of us in the eight who suffered serious back injuries this year. There's three main elements to our sport: physical, technical and mental. I feel that we were strong on the physical side but we could have been better at the other two. The men's team had access to a sports psychologist but we didn't really use him, whereas the women were more proactive in that area, and the cyclists use a psychiatrist [Steve Peters] as a key member of their management team. Then there were some strange details about the way our boat was rigged: we had an arrangement with the McLaren F1 racing team but nothing happened until the eve of the Games, when they turned up with a piece of plastic which was gaffer-taped to the front of our boat. I can't see that happening to Bradley Wiggins.