I’m sure I’m not alone in enjoying creating my own dream Olympic eights from athletes in smaller boats every time a new Olympic rowing squad is selected. While it’s just a little bit of fun, it’s possible that the idea of coaches creating eights out of existing small boat athletes could become the reality for flat water rowing at the Olympics.
There has been discussion around the idea of athletes doubling up across events, as is seen in other sports such as swimming or gymnastics, but is this a realistic possibility for rowing? And what affects would it have on the sport?
It is well documented that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has expressed intentions to reduce the number of rowing events and athletes at the Olympics, in order to create more capacity to introduce other sports that it believes will be able to attract a new and more diverse audience to the Olympic Games. It is also hoped that many of these new disciplines may also create opportunities for a more varied range of nations to be represented on the largest sporting stage. Under the current Olympic Charter, the total number of athletes is limited to 10,500. So, if the IOC is to introduce new sports, either other sports have to be cut completely, or the number of athletes that are competing for a sport has to be reduced. We are already seeing this process happening with the move by World Rowing to drop lightweight rowing from the Olympic Program in favour of the introduction of coastal rowing at LA2028.
If a nation was to qualify every single boat for the Olympics it could have 48 athletes in total racing. With the loss of the lightweight double for LA2028 this only brings down the rowing team to a maximum of 44 rowers, and with spares and support staff this means that rowing still dominates team sizes at the Olympics. Perhaps, then, the solution has been staring us in the face all along: countries could double up or even triple up athletes to race in a number of boat classes. This has happened before, for the 2021 Tokyo games, Kerri Gowler and Grace Prendergast from New Zealand and Annabelle McIntyre and Jessica Morrison from Australia all doubled up at some point at the regatta. For Prendergast and Gowler, they went from the pair to the eight. So doubling up is not unheard of, but could it become the new way of approaching an Olympic games?
The Pros
To form a men’s and women’s eight from the other events would cut the size of rowing teams down to just 18 athletes – over half the quantity. There could even be the opportunity to compete across four events in the eight, quad, double, and single and, potentially, pick up four golds at a single Olympics. A true phenomenon of the sport might even try enter all events and go for six golds at one Olympics, a feat not seen outside of the sports of swimming and gymnastics.
Single athletes wining multiple medals at the Olympics is not uncommon in other sports such as swimming and cycling, creating sporting icons such as Michael Phelps or Sir Chris Hoy. The current most successful British Olympian is cyclist Sir Jason Kenny, with seven golds and two silvers gained at just three Olympics. Compare this to great Britian’s most successful Olympic rower, Sir Steve Redgrave, who managed to win five golds at five consecutive Olympics.
Rowers wining multiple medals at an Olympics would instantly bring more attention to the sport and a new generation of national sporting heroes.
This new format of teams would also be intriguing to see how athletes would be forced to adapt to the different challenges of each boat class, particularly those scullers who then would have to sweep in the eight. Athletes would be rewarded not only for how powerful they are or how good they are in a single boat but also for their adaptability across a range of classes. We have all seen how fast Ollie Zeidler is in a single, but could he translate this speed into a quad or even an eight?
The Cons
There are costs to this change. Most obvious is that this will clearly reduce the opportunities for rowers to compete at the Olympics from countries such as team GB or the USA who are able to support large teams that compete across almost all the boat classes. While we would still see opportunities to gain GB vests at World Championships and World Cups a move like this to downsize rowing at the Olympics would likely have a knock-on effect for athlete funding.
There also remains a question of how this format would work with nations who couldn’t support an eight. There is the question of how much recovery can be offered to athletes competing in multiple boat classes and how qualification for the Olympics would work. For instance would they be required to double up at World Championships or World Cups prior to the Olympics in order to qualify certain boats?
The pressure of the sport of rowing to downsize from the IOC cannot be ignored. If rowing is to remain on the Olympic stage, then it has to be willing to adapt. Already we have seen with LA2028 an acceptance to allow the course to be reduced to 1500m. This is a change that I actually think will lead to better racing and one I wouldn’t be against having as a permanent change. If there was a boat class to be cut, there is an argument that the eight, which is a boat class that is already dominated by a just a few wealthy nations who are able to fund large rowing programs, would be in danger. This would be a massive loss for rowing as the eight remains the most exciting and engaging boat class to watch and one of the few that is able to attract viewership from a more casual audience. A move to encourage doubling up and tripling up athletes would also help in creating a new generation of rowing icons that with enough success would be able to bring attention to our sport from a wider audience and hopefully further grow interest in this great sport. Therefore, if teams like GB started to embrace doubling up, I would hope this would be seen as a positive move to secure the future of flat water rowing at the Olympics.
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