PARIS (Reuters) - They may put in the least amount of physical effort of the nine people in the boat, but, make no mistake, without a good coxswain there would be little chance of a place on the Olympic podium for the teams taking part in Saturday's eights finals.
Tasked with steering the boat, giving instructions and executing race plans, the modern cox also has access to masses of real-time data about the race to maximise the efforts of their crews.
"He (coxswain Henry Fielding) brings out the best in all of us, so we could not do it without him," British rower Heidi Long told Reuters.
"I feel like the cox is often quite undervalued, and maybe under-rated by people who don't really understand rowing," her teammate Harriet Taylor said.
"We're a big group and he keeps us all on exactly on the same thing - he takes away all the worry from what we have to do. We know that when we're sitting the start line, absolutely everything's been taken care of," Long added.
The eights finals take place at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium on Saturday, the final day of the Olympic rowing regatta, and the British will be in with a strong medal chance if Fielding can keep them on the right course.
The job is a challenging one, Danish cox Sophie Oestergaard told Reuters following her crew's elimination from the competition.
"First of all, I have two strings that are attached to the rudder, so I steer the actual boat with those strings. Then I have a box in front of me that has a lot of data on it - for example, how long it takes us to reach 500 meters, the number of strokes for taking a minute, things like that," she said.
"Then I also have a speakerphone that's attached through the whole boat ... in a race, it's about executing the race plan that me and the coach have decided on beforehand."
Oestergaard admitted emotions can kick in once the race gets underway.
"During the race, I'm shouting most of the way - during training and the warm up, it's much more about keeping heads cool, and keeping eyes on the boat and focus, but then obviously, when the race starts, it's a lot of shouting," she said.
The women's eights final take place at 10:50 local time on Saturday, followed by the men's, which will be the last race of the Olympic regatta.
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor, editing by Ed Osmond)
