Olympic Rowing: A beginner's guide

Billions around the globe will tune in to watch the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games as it gets underway in Japan this week. As usual, rowing will kick off in the first week of the Games and will run until July 30th. If you are new to the sport, have only ever tried the indoor variant, or just want to know more about one of the modern Olympics’ longest-standing sports, here is our beginner’s guide to Olympic rowing and how to enjoy watching it.

Rowing has been staged at every Games since making its debut on the Olympic programme at Paris in 1900 after the rowing event at the 1896 Games was cancelled due to bad weather. Competitive rowing has existed as a sport for around 200 years, born out of the rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge universities on the River Thames after the first Boat Race in 1829 - a race that continues to be watched by hundreds of thousands on the banks of the Thames each year, with many millions more globally via television and internet.

Olympic rowing is divided into events by boat type, ranging from singles to eight-person boats plus coxswain. Women’s rowing was first included in the Olympic rowing schedule at Montreal in 1976, and this year, for the first time, there will be an equal number of male and female athletes racing in an equal number of events.

These events are:

Men’s and Women’s Singles (abbreviated to 1x)

Men’s and Women’s Doubles (2x)

Men’s and Women’s Lightweight Doubles (Lwt 2x)

Men’s and Women’s Pairs (2-)

Men’s and Women’s Fours (4-)

Men’s and Women’s Quads (4x)

Men’s and Women’s Eights (8+)

All these events fall under one of two disciplines: sculling and sweep. Sculling is where each rower has a pair of oars - one for each hand. Sweep rowing has each rower pulling on a single oar with both hands. Singles, Doubles and Quads are all sculling events and Pairs, Fours and Eights are sweep rowing.

Only the Eights have coxswains who steer the boat – all the other events are coxless, with rowers responsible for steering their own boat.

There is one more caveat – lightweights. All but one event for each gender is open weight. However, there is a Lightweight Double event offered for both men and women. The lightweight category for men requires that crews have an average weight of 70kg or lighter, and no rower may weigh over 72.5kg; for female crews, the maximum average weight is 57kg, and no rower may weigh over 59kg.

Regardless of the event, the Olympic rowing distance is always 2,000m, raced between six lanes. The 2,000m Olympic distance was chosen by rounding down the 2,112m Henley Royal Regatta distance – the sports oldest regatta, running since 1885. Henley is 2,112m because that is the longest straight over which two racing lanes can be run on the Thames in Henley. Coincidentally, when the IOC was formed, its governance was based on the Henley Royal Regatta Stewards.

Each event has its own progression criteria from heats to finals, depending on the size of the entry. The Single events field 32 entries for each gender while the eights field only seven each. The Single Scullers will race through heats, repechages, quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals, whereas the Eights will face only a heat, repechage and final.

All events include a repechage — a round of racing after the heats that essentially allows losing boats a second chance to qualify for the quarter-finals, semi-finals or finals.

Qualification to the Olympics is based on performances at the World Rowing Championships and Continental Qualification regattas in the year leading to the Olympics.

The Croatian Sinkovic brothers hope to make history in the Men’s Pair event in Tokyo as they attempt to become the first crew to win Olympic gold in both sculling and sweep. They won gold together sculling in the Men’s Double in Rio before switching to sweep rowing in the pair in 2017. They head to Tokyo as reigning World and European champions in the event.

New Zealanders Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler will attempt to pull off the rare feat of winning two golds at one Games by doubling up in the Women’s Eight and Pair. They have done the double before – in Linz at the 2019 World Rowing Championships, so it’s certainly possible, but due to New Zealand’s lockdown restrictions, they enter Tokyo with no international racing experience this season.

Two mothers will be making very late comebacks to rowing in Tokyo, both in with a chance of a medal. Lithuania’s Donata Karaliene won bronze in the Women’s Double at Rio 2016 before retiring to give birth to twins. After the games were delayed by a year Karaliene began training in late 2020 and made the European championship podium just six months later. British rower Helen Glover retired after Rio having won gold in the Women’s Pair in both London and Rio, and has also since given birth to twins. Glover is back in the pair with her new partner Polly Swann.

There is a long-standing rivalry between GB and Germany in the Men’s Eights that is set for a blistering showdown in Tokyo. Britain goes in as reigning Olympic champions and have come out on top both times the crews have raced in 2021, but Germany has proven pedigree in the event having won all but one of their races between 2017 and 2019, and held GB to a photo finish in their last matchup before Tokyo in Lucerne. New Zealand, Australia and USA are all dark horses having not raced internationally since the World Rowing Championships in Linz in 2019.

Watch the Olympic rowing action on the Sea Forest Waterway in Tokyo from Friday 23rd to Friday 30th July.