Rowing in 1892: The start and the settle

Sculling with two oars, or sweep with one Steve Redgrave: five Olympic golds, 1984–2000 Rowing is a race between crews who sit facing the stern and drive the boat forward with oars. The championship distance is 2,000 metres, usually six lanes of buoyed water, and the winner is the boat whose bow ball crosses the finish line first. A single sculler races alone. An eight carries eight sweep rowers and a coxswain who steers and calls the race. Between those extremes sit pairs, doubles, fours and quads, some coxed in club racing and coxless at the Olympic regatta.

What the sport asks for is repeatable power inside a shared rhythm. A men's eight covers 2,000 metres in a little over five minutes; a single takes longer, but the piece is still a sustained effort near the limit, not a sprint that ends in the first minute. Crews rate the stroke in strokes per minute, settle after a high start, and often decide the medal in the last 500 metres. Because everyone in a sweep boat pulls on one side, one person's mistimed catch slows the whole hull.

Rowing is older than the modern Olympics as a public contest. The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race began in 1829, Henley Royal Regatta in 1839, and the international federation in 1892. Women joined the Olympic programme in 1976. The greatest Olympic record in the sport belongs to Steve Redgrave, who won gold at five Games in a row. Elisabeta Lipă of Romania matched the five golds and collected eight Olympic medals across six Games.