Daniel Topolski

The son of the Polish artist Feliks Topolski and actress Marian Everall, Daniel attended the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London, before going to Westminster School and New College, Oxford, where he read geography.[1] He was taught sculling by his father, on Regent's Park lake in London, and captained Westminster School's rowing eight.[1] While at Oxford, he rowed in the University Boat Race on two occasions. In the 1967 race, rowing at number seven, he helped Oxford to their third consecutive victory. The following year, this time rowing at bow, he suffered defeat.[2][3] Relatively lightly built for a rower, he gained 24 pounds (11 kg) to qualify for the 1967 race.[1]

Topolski's rowing career included a gold medal in the 1977 World Championships in Amsterdam,[4] in the lightweight eight, and a silver medal in the 1975 World Rowing Championships in Nottingham, in the lightweight coxless four.[1][5][6] During his rowing career, Topolski appeared at the Henley Royal Regatta on 74 occasions, winning the Henley Medal four times.[1]

He was the finishing coach for Oxford University's Boat Race crew from 1973 to 1987.[7] Of the fifteen Boat Races in which he was coach, Oxford won twelve including an unbroken run of ten victories between 1976 and 1985. This run of success and its continuation after Topolski's departure brought Oxford to a point in 1992 where they had won sixteen of the last seventeen races and were within one victory of equalling Cambridge's overall total of wins.[8]

Topolski coached the British rowing squads competing at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics.[9] He also coached the British women's eight between 1978 and 1980.[1] He acted as a commentator for the BBC at the 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing Olympics[3] and on home waters at the 2012 London Olympics.

Outside rowing, Topolski worked as a researcher for the BBC until 1973. He published two travel books. Muzungu: One Man's Africa (1976) was based on his travels in Africa for eight months in 1972. Travels with My Father: A South American Journey (1983) was based on a tour of South America with his father in 1981, which resulted in his arrest and imprisonment in Paraguay.[1] He also published two books about rowing, The Oxford Revival (1985) and True Blue: The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny (1989; with Patrick Robinson).[1] He wrote for The Observer for more than twenty years.[1]

Topolski won the inaugural William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 1989 as the co-author (with Patrick Robinson) of True Blue: The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny. The book tells the story of the 1987 Boat Race and the disagreement amongst the Oxford crew known as the "Oxford mutiny".[7] It was made into a 1996 film.[8] In 1994 he won a Travelex Radio Award for the BBC series Topolski’s Travels.[5] In 2013 he was made an honorary fellow of New College, Oxford.[1]

Topolski was married to actress Susan Gilmore and had three children: Emma, Tamsin and Luke.[5]

Topolski died on 21 February 2015 following a lengthy period of ill health. Five-times Olympic gold medallist Steve Redgrave said: "Rowing will miss him dearly and so will I."[8]

Notes

Bibliography

• Burnell, Richard (1979). One Hundred and Fifty Years of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. Precision Press. ISBN 0950063878.