Coach-of-the-year winner preparing Tokyo 2020 Olympics attack

World Rowing's newly crowned coach of the year, Roger Barrow, is already strategising South Africa's attack on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

He's eager to bolster the limited support structure around the rowers to boost his fleet's firepower in battle over the next four years.

But the long-term solution, Barrow knows, is growing the talent pool.

Great Britain, with 145,000 rowers, topped the Olympic rowing medals table at the Rio showpiece with five pieces of silverware - an average of one gong per 29,000 rowers.

Barrow had targeted three medals in Brazil, but walked away with a solitary silver in the men's pair, as well as two fourth places and another two fifth spots.

He was disappointed at the time, but if one examines the numbers, maybe it wasn't that bad.

SA's ratio was one Olympic medal to 2,200 rowers. That's the sum total of water-based rowers in the country - as opposed to those working out on ergo machines - and more than half of them are in school.

South Africa ended joint 13th on the medals table in Brazil, but in terms of the number of A-finals reached, they were tied for fourth.

That's why he got the award; Barrow has been pulling rabbits out his hat using mice.

He's also pulled plenty of hair out since he took charge eight years ago, and now he wants to take the pressure off himself a little by hiring another coach and maybe an administrator.

He also wants to find a permanent base for the rowers to call home. They have been housed at the Tuks high performance centre since before 2009, but they have had to find empty halls for their indoor ergo training sets and the only available spot to rest between sessions is the cafeteria.

"I want to take a more professional approach with more fulltime people," Barrow said in an interview over breakfast this week, his only free time before rushing to Pretoria for meetings.

And there's one outcome he wants at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. "More medals must be the goal."

In Rio, Lawrence Brittain and Shaun Keeling won silver on the first Thursday, but the following day the other four crews finished outside the medals.

"We've got a slogan that we're on our fourth, and fourth sucks so let's do better for the next four years."

Barrow's analysis is that the men's and women's lightweight double sculls - both considered medal material - were hurt by the weather-altered schedule, which meant there was no day's break between the semifinals and the final.

John Smith and Ursula Grobler were both big lightweights, and the lack of time to restore maximum strength before losing weight again was probably too draining, Barrow surmised.

"Both crews rowed beautiful semis but then the turnaround time to the finals was too tight. I think the day's rest cost us the most," said Barrow.

The coach believes that seven of SA's 12 Rio Olympic rowers would continue, if not more.

Vince Breet, for example, is likely to return to the squad in two years once he completes his biomedical engineering studies at Harvard in the US.

Plus there is new talent coming in from the under-23 ranks.

While the lightweights dominated the past four years, with the four winning gold at London 2012 and the double scull being crowned world champions in 2014 in a world record, the heavyweights are expected to lead the charge going forward.

"I think the men's pair has to be the priority boat," said Barrow. "I will still make two boats, a double and a pair and a [single], because I've got five good athletes returning."

With Breet and others linking up later, there could be another four. "A double, a pair and a four. That must be my goal for Tokyo."

The lightweight women double sculls boat, with under-23 Nicole van Wyk joining Kirsten McCann and Grobler, will again be powerful.

Barrow expects to work closely with some US universities in future. "Since my award and since we've done well, I'm getting a lot more emails from American varsities [asking] 'can we work with you?'. I'm happy to send kids there on scholarships."

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