The Leading Lights of Women’s Rowing

In light of International Women’s Day, I wanted to reflect on some of the most historically significant events in women’s rowing history. GB now boasts one of the strongest women’s squads the world over, whilst junior women’s participation in the sport is at an all-time high. Yet, the question remains: how did we get to a point where all of this was possible? And, what changes still need to be made to allow women to excel even further in rowing? In this article, I’ll be exploring some of the most inspirational women in our sport, vital moments in the rise of women’s rowing and discussing Great Britain’s path to success on the international stage. Laws such as title nine (USA) now enforce equal funding for all athletes to bridge the gap in a predominantly male-dominated field. Women are welcomed at World Championships and the Olympics; more opportunities are being given to schoolgirl rowers just starting in the sport. But who paved the way to get us where we are now? 

The World Championships 

World Rowing first introduced women’s international rowing in 1951 with the European Championships. At the time, Europeans were the only international regatta that incorporated women. The Olympics and World Championships would follow suit, but it would be another 23 years until women’s rowing honestly had a place on the international field. In 1974 the Great Britain rowing team completely transformed its selection process, led by head coach Penny Chuter (an international medallist herself). Similar to the trials process in place today, athletes would be selected as individuals and then be formed into crews, rather than the existing top crew from each boat class being time trialled and then accessed as to whether it would be fast enough to compete internationally.

With this new and improved way of selection, the GB women’s team became stronger and stronger. GB sent its first team of women ever to the 1973 Senior world championships. The squad consisted of a single sculler (Ann cork), a pair (Lin Clark and Liz Monti), a coxed four (c. Pauline Wright, Chris Grimes, Maggie Lambourn, Clare Grove and Chris Aistrop), and a coxed quad (c. Karen Peer, Lorraine Baker, Pauline Bird, Liz Lorrimer and Jackie Darling). Three years later, the British team earned their first World Championship final spot at Amsterdam. The 1977 regatta took place over a week in August and saw 66 crews from 18 countries compete in women’s events; Pauline Hart and Astrid Ayling were among them. The women’s double scull finished 5th out of the 16 entries and took their place in the A final, a first for great Britain. 

Four years after the double’s success, the women’s squad left the World Championships held at the Oberschleißheim course in Germany with their first world medal. It was here that Beryl Mitchell won a silver medal in the open weight single scull; her third appearance on the international stage. Four years later, in 1985, Mitchell made it onto the podium again, this time in the lightweight double sculls with her partner Lin Clark; this would be the first gold medal ever for the GB women’s squad at World Championship level. Alongside this astounding achievement, Mitchell also became the first British woman to win medals in both lightweight and open weight categories.

Over the next decade, more and more women started to pick up the sport; clubs were accepting more female athletes, and racing was getting increasingly competitive – adding pressure on regattas to include more events for women. In 1993, the lightweight four of Tania Williams, Annamarie Stapleton, Alison Brownless and Jane hall became GB’s first sweep world champions. Great Britain now had medals in sweep, scull, open weight and lightweight. However, it wasn’t until 2002 that the first British adaptive women rowers were able to race at an adaptive world rowing championship. That year, Katie- George Dunlevy and Naomi Riches became world champions, competing in the Mixed LTA Coxed four in Banyoles, Spain. In 2006, FISA included the first adaptive women’s event at the World Championships in which Helene Raynsford of Great Britain was victorious against six other competitors. Both Riches and Raynsford would go on to race in the Paralympic squad in the 2008 Paralympic games. 

The Olympics 

1976 was the year that the GB women made their debut at the Olympic games. Coaches selected two boats to race in Montreal: the coxed four (c. Pauline Write, Diana Bishop, Clare Grove, Pauline Bird, and Gill Webb) and the pair (Lin Clark and Beryl Mitchell). They would race 197 other women from 30 different nations; each was a pioneer at the forefront of women’s rowing, making history for the first time. 1988 was a particularly significant Olympic year; not only was the 1000m women’s course lengthened to match the men’s 2000m course in Seoul, but it was also the first year that women were allowed to race in coxless quads. Unlike their male counterparts, who had been rowing in coxless quads for decades, women had not been allowed to compete in coxless boats bigger than a double or pair. 

In 2000, Guin Batten, Gillian Lindsay, Katherine Grainger and Miriam Batten made history by winning the first-ever Olympic medal for the GB team. The coxless quad came home with silver, but this was only the start of GB’s Olympic success. Four years later, Katherine Grainger became the first British woman to win two Olympic rowing medals; she would become a four-time Olympic medallist and six-time world champion by the end of her career. In the same year, Helen Casey and Tracy Ganglands became the first lightweight women’s crew to race in any Olympic games event, a milestone for both women’s rowing and lightweight rowing. 

In Beijing, the IPC finally included rowing in the Paralympic Games, and the GB squad made their debut. Karen Cromie finished 5th in the Mixed TA double sculls, Naomi Riches and Vicki Hansford won bronze in the mixed LTA coxed four and Helen Raynsford became Paralympic champion in the AS single scull. In the same year, Annabel Vernon, Debbie Flood, Frances Houghton and Katherine Grainger also brought home silverware with silver medals in the women’s quadruple sculls event. 

2012 and 2016

The Olympic year of 2012 was a momentous one for the GB women’s squad. The first female Olympic gold medals were won, in not one boat class, but three. Combining Olympic and Paralympic teams, the GB men and women came away with ten medals, and all achieved in front of a home crowd. Eton Dorney saw GB’s first lightweight women’s Olympic gold medal won by the double of Kat Copeland and Sophie Hosking. Anna Watkins, Katherine Grainger, Helen Glover and Heather Stanning all became Olympic champions in the open weight pair and double, respectively. The Paralympic squad also had an incredibly successful Olympic regatta with three women becoming Paralympic champions in the mixed coxed four; Pam Relph, Naomi Riches and c. Lily Van Den Broeke. 

In 2016 the GB squad made it their third year in a row at the top of the medal table with a win in the women’s pair and silver in the women’s eight. Both crews made history; Stanning and Glover became the first and only (so far) British women to be Olympic champions twice, whilst the women’s eight became the first women’s eight to win an Olympic medal for Great Britain. Great Britain’s Paralympic squad had their best performance to date with an astonishing three gold medals won by Rachel Morris (single scull), Lauren Rowles (mixed double), Grace Clough and Pam Relph (Mixed coxed four). 

With a national squad whose speed seems to increase exponentially and more women than ever entering our sport, I feel incredibly excited about the future of women’s rowing – and you should too.

Stay tuned for part two, where I’ll break down a brief history of the National Schools’ Regatta, Henley Women’s Regatta, Henley Royal Regatta, discussing some of the most notable junior women of all time in the process. 

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That’s all for now. If you’re hungry for more, check out any of our other pieces from The Catch, listen to the latest podcast episode, or flick through our race previews.

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Sources used:

https://rowingstory.com/stuff/gb-womens-rowing-firsts/

https://www.paralympic.org/rowinghttps://www.olympic.org/london-2012/rowing

https://www.paralympic.org/london-2012/results/rowing

https://expeditionrowing.blogspot.com/2016/05/when-women-first-rowed-at-olympics.html

https://worldrowing.com/events/rowing-and-para-rowing/world-rowing-championships/

Cover Image: British Rowing – Getty

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