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Rowing Fan Guide

The outlook

While a record 51 countries qualified for Sydney, the United States is the only one to send a full contingent of 14 boats and 48 athletes. Australia and Germany each are sending 10 boats.

U.S. hopes for gold are highest in the men's eight, an event Americans dominated from 1900-56 but haven't won since 1964. U.S. crews have won the last three world championships. The Sydney crew will include four men who were on all three boats and four more who were on the last two. The only newcomer is Dave Simon, a sophomore at Brown.

Britain's Steve Redgrave, who won gold at the past four Olympics, is switching from coxless pairs to the coxless four, an event won in 1992 and 1996 by the crew known as Australia's Oarsome Foursome.

The finer points

Equipment: In rowing, the competitor faces the rear of the boat and wields an oar that pivots in an oarlock, which acts like a fulcrum. The boats are called shells, with a subclassification of sculls. All sculls are shells, but not all shells are sculls. In a scull, each crew member rows with two oars, one on either side, called sculling oars. Other shells have one oar, a sweep oar, per crew member. The sweep rower pulls his oar with both hands as he rows on one side of the boat; the rower next in line rows on the opposite side. Certain crew configurations may or may not include an extra member, called a coxswain (pronounced cox'n), who does not row but uses a rudder to steer and also coaches the rowers.

Competition: Olympic races are run on a 2,000-meter course. A system of heats, semifinals and repechages (second-chance rounds) is used to determine who will be in the finals. Six crews (three from each semifinal) reach the final. Men and women each compete in: single, double and quadruple sculls, lightweight double scull, the eight and coxless pair. Men also race in coxless four and lightweight coxless four.

Fresher's Guide to Rowing

Rowing is by far the most popular participation sport in Cambridge; well over 1500 students compete for their college every year. Trinity's boat club is called First and Third and, like the college, is the biggest and one of the most successful. Each year we teach dozens of people to row from scratch, many of whom go on to represent the college and in some cases the university at the highest level. In Michaelmas term we put out as many novice crews as possible, last year we had 4 men's and 3 women's novice eights. These boats take part in novice regattas during the term but are integrated with senior crews as quickly as possible, and many novices go on to represent top college boats in their first year: last year the 1st May VIII contained one ex-novice and the 2nd May VIII contained three.

Rowing is an excellent sport to take up if you would like to try something new, and this is the best - perhaps the only - opportunity you will have in your life to have a go. Rowing is a very technical sport and particularly with novice boats it is the crews with the superior technique which move faster and not the tallest, biggest or strongest. Consequently, we would urge you to try the sport, whatever shape or size you are and however 'unfit' you consider yourself to be!

The role of a cox in a boat is often under-estimated, as is the difficulty of the tasks involved which include steering, commanding the crew and coaching on technical faults. In fact, the challenge is such that to become a very good cox requires a great deal of dedication, and as such good coxes gain a lot of respect from their crews. The club currently has fewer senior coxes than it needs and so there will be opportunities for novices to cox top college boats later in the year.

The social side of rowing is also very important: Formal Halls with crews of the opposite sex from other colleges are frequently arranged, as are cocktail parties, curries and other events such as barbecues and football matches. Rowing is a terrific way to meet other people from all years and all colleges, and in particular your fellow freshers, many of whom you would never even get to meet otherwise.

Membership of First and Third is absolutely free - no initial commitment is required. If you want to have a go, get in touch with the lower boats' captains (see below) and they will get you involved as soon as possible.

If you want to find out more about First and Third then look at the Club section, or find out more about rowing in general, such as some of the myths or the jargon explained. Find out about all the other clubs that row in Cambridge in the Cam clubs section.

If you are an aspiring cox, or wish to learn more about the basics of rowing from a cox's perspective, take a look at our extensive 'Guide to Coxing.'

The highlight of rowing in Cambridge is without a doubt the Lent and May bumps races, in which students of all abilities compete to promote their college in a league table stretching back through the history of Cambridge rowing. Learn how they work here. Forget every kind of racing you may have seen before, the bumps are the real reason for rowing while in Cambridge, a uniquely Oxbridge experience that should not be missed.

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