Governing body FISA | Events 14 (men: 8; women: 6) | |
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Rowing at the Summer Olympics has been part of the competition since its debut in the 1900 Summer Olympics. Rowing was on the program at the 1896 Summer Olympics but was cancelled due to bad weather. Only men were allowed to compete until the women's events were introduced at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal which gave national federations the incentive to support women's events and catalysed growth in women's rowing. Lightweight rowing events (which have weight-limited crews) were introduced to the games in 1996. Qualifying for the rowing events is under the jurisdiction of the International Rowing Federation (or FISA, its French acronym). FISA predates the modern Olympics and was the first international sport federation to join the modern Olympic movement.
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Events
At the current Olympics the following 14 events are offered:
The lightweight events were threatened in 2002 when the Programme Commission of the IOC recommended that, outside combat sports (boxing & wrestling, but not fencing, shooting, and archery) and weightlifting, there should not be weight-category events. The Executive Board overturned this recommendation and the lightweight rowing has been continued.
In the early games (1900 and 1904) there were several other categories of events (Junior, Novice, Association, and Intermediate). A number of other boat classes have made an appearance at several games (sometimes for a long time) but have been subsequently dropped – as recently as the 1990s. The primary loss has been in boats with coxwains, except for the eights, which have always been coxed. These were:
The non-Olympic boatclasses (which still compete in World Championships) are today LM1X, LM4X, LM2-, LM8+, LW1X, LW4X, M2+ and W4-.
Race distances
Today all races are raced over a 2000 m course, but this did not become standard before the Stockholm Olympics in 1912. Before this it was raced over various distances. In Paris in 1900 (1750 m), in St. Louis in 1904 (3218 m), in London in 1908 (2412 m), and again in London in 1948 (1850 m). The 1908 and 1948 were held over the Henley Royal Regatta course.
Women's races were raced over 1,000 meters until 1988 when they were changed to 2,000 meters.
Early games featured match races between two or three boats (in 1952, between four or five boats).
The modern six boat side-by-side format was first adopted at the 1936 Olympic Games, and has been the standard since the 1956 Olympic Games.
Qualification
There is a limited number of crews permitted to race, so the International Rowing Federation holds qualification events in order to determine who competes at the Olympic Games. At the Olympic Games, each National Olympic Committee can only have one boat per event.
The main qualification comes from the previous year's World Rowing Championships. Other qualifying events are called "Continental Qualification Regattas", of which four are held during the year preceding the games - Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Final (open to everyone else). Each year FISA issues details of how many crews qualify at each regatta.
At the World Championships, the top finishing boats guarantee a place for that country - the rowers in the crew can be changed before the games. At the qualification regattas, it is the crew that wins that qualifies for the Olympics, and if members of that crew race in the Olympics they must race in that event.
Medal table
The numbers below are after the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.
Multiple medalists
The table shows those who have won at least 3 gold medals.
Nations
Number of rowers from each nation by year of Olympics, starting with 1896 (when none competed due to bad weather) then 1900 through 2016.