Dick Tonks

Richard William Tonks (born 21 February 1951) is a former national New Zealand rowing coach and a former rower who won a silver medal at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Through his coaching career he has coached crews to a total of 25 World Championship medals—including thirteen gold—and a total of seven Olympic medals—six of which were gold.

Early life and rowing career Dick Tonks' father, Alan Tonks, was an accomplished rower and coach, and it is presumed that his influence was a major factor in Dick's taking up rowing at Wanganui Boys' College at the age of thirteen.

In 1970, back at the sport, he rowed for Otago in Dunedin and was able to earn a place on the national team in 1971. An arrangement was agreed on by which Tonks would continue to coach Drysdale and the women's double sculls boat (Eve MacFarlane and Zoe Stevenson) until the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in a private capacity. Drysdale won gold at the event, with was the sixth Olympic gold medal of one of Tonks' rowers.

On his coaching style, Tonks is reported to have said, "good coaching is a dictatorship and I am a dictator." He later admitted to saying this during "a very bad year."

Awards Dick Tonks has won the Halberg Awards' "Coach of the year" five times—in 1999, 2004, 2005, 2009 and 2012; more than any other coach in the award's 27-year history—and has been named a finalist twelve times.

He has also been awarded "World Rowing coach of the year" at the World Rowing Awards three times—2005, 2010 and 2012—since its inception in 2002. Tonks is currently the only person to have won the award more than once.

In the 2003 New Year Honours, Tonks was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to rowing.