Thor Nilsen, who has died aged 92, was a world rower, coach and administrator who helped to keep up his sport’s standing as an Olympic occasion throughout an period when it would in any other case have fallen by the wayside.
As growth director of FISA, the World Rowing Federation (now referred to as World Rowing), from 1981 to 1997, Nilsen was instrumental in modernising the game, together with by initiating round-the-year drug assessments in 1981 (a uncommon factor in sport on the time), and organising a brand new light-weight division in 1996.
He additionally labored to increase the worldwide attain of rowing, notably in Asia and South America, and maybe his most important achievement got here in 1986 when he secured funding for a four-year rowing growth programme that included the launch of a world cup regatta sequence, the creation of a common teaching guide and the launch of starter kits to assist new rowing golf equipment arrange with a minimal of fuss and expense. By the point Nilsen had stepped down in 2017, 150 international locations had been affiliated to FISA, up from 62 when he started his work.
Other than his administrative achievements, Nilsen was additionally a efficiency director and training guide in numerous international locations throughout Europe, serving to rowers in Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway, and Eire to eight Olympic gold medals and greater than 30 world championship titles. For his total contribution to the game he was introduced with FISA’s distinguished service award in 2003.
Nilsen was born in Bærum, close to Oslo in Norway, to Leif, a stone haulier and union organiser, and Karen (nee Nygård), a home servant. He first started to row in the course of the second world conflict, in his early teenagers, on the west facet of the close by Oslofjord and, after being apprenticed to a printer at 14, represented Norway on the European championships when he was 15.
Having left the printing commerce in 1949, he acquired a stake in an organization that bought swimming swimming pools, however took a critical incorrect flip when he tried to boost capital for the enterprise by holding up a publish workplace within the Oslo suburb of Stabekk. His gun was not loaded, however he spent virtually two years in jail in consequence, returning to printing on his launch earlier than organising an promoting and advertising and marketing company after which changing into concerned in numerous enterprise ventures over the subsequent 20 years.
Within the meantime he continued together with his part-time, beginner involvement in rowing, changing into chief coach at Bærum rowing membership in 1958, however gave up his profession as a rower after struggling a black-out throughout an Olympic qualification regatta in Copenhagen. He had been Norwegian champion greater than a dozen instances, and had represented his nation on the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
Though Nilsen remained as a coach with Bærum, he additionally supplied assist to crews all through Norway, in addition to in Sweden, and amongst his most notable achievements was his steering of the Norwegian Hansen brothers, Alf and Frank, who gained Olympic double sculls gold in Montreal in 1976. That 12 months Nilsen additionally turned full-time chief coach for the Spanish Rowing Federation, which inspired him to commit a few of his time to FISA actions.
It was at Spain’s nationwide coaching centre in Banyoles in Catalonia that he started to create a centre of excellence for FISA’s growth programme, and it was from there that he efficiently lobbied for the introduction of worldwide ladies’s occasions within the late Seventies. However his place at Banyoles got here to an abrupt finish in 1980 when Pedro Abreu, a Cuban who financed the centre, was kidnapped by Basque terrorists.
The next 12 months Nilsen moved to turn into Italy’s coach on the nation’s new rowing centre at Piediluco, a village by a lake in Umbria. At Piediluco there was good rowing water, a lab, a gymnasium, convention amenities and a clubhouse, plus good meals and lodging for rowers in a former monastery. The world’s prime coaches and athletes got here there to eat, sleep and row collectively in a rarefied environment, and it was throughout his years at Piediluco that, with the backing of FISA’s president, Thomi Keller, that Nilsen actually started to reinvigorate the game.
His four-year international rowing growth programme started in 1986 when he managed to wrest $340,000 from Olympic Solidarity, a physique charged with supporting the expansion of Olympic sports activities. The starter kits he supplied for brand new federations included transport containers transformed into boatsheds that had been geared up with 4 small racing boats plus oars, fittings and a toolbox for upkeep. He additionally persuaded rich groups to donate their renovated boats to start-up golf equipment and in 1992 despatched his assistant, Matt Smith, on a whirlwind fact-finding tour of 29 international locations, 18 of which had been in Asia and 6 in Europe beneath Soviet affect.
He resigned from his Italian teaching job in 1990 and, together with his second spouse, Ingmarie (nee Nilsson), moved to Strömstad in Sweden.
He retired formally from FISA on the age of 65 in 1997, however continued working for them part-time on a stipend earlier than lastly ending his involvement in 2017.
Nilsen’s first marriage, in 1957, to Anne-Lise Jakobsen, resulted in divorce in 1965. He’s survived by Ingmarie, a daughter, Aina, from his first marriage, Ingmarie’s son, Stephen, from a earlier relationship, two grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.
