Technical details
All races are held over a course of 2000m, with six lanes marked off.
The different events in rowing range from the single-person sculls, double
sculls, fours and eights.
Each sculler a sculling blade in each hand, 2.98m in length. In coxed events,
the cox steers the boat. The oars are 3.82m lon, and rowers hold a single oar.
The blades must be painted with national colours.
In men's and women's events, there is one coxed event, which is the eight. The
cox steers the boat. In coxless events, the boat is steered by a rudder line
attached to one of the rowers' shoes.
The boats vary in size from single sculls, measuring 8.2m, to the eight which
is 18.9m.
Five facts
1) Rowing became an Olympic sport in 1900.
2) Since 1900 the distance has changed four times before 2000m was agreed upon
for men and women at the 1992 Games in Barcelona.
3) The women's rowing event was introduced to the Olympic programme in 1976.
4) Great Britain has won a total of 21 gold, 12 silver and six bronze medals
across the different rowing events.
5) Steven Redgrave has won gold medals in 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000.
E-mail Article 
Print-Friendly
Subscribe to RSS Feed 
Post to del.icio.us