5 golds
Consecutive Olympic golds
Gold at five Games in a row, the only such streak in Olympic rowing. The boats were the coxed four, then the coxless pair three times, then the coxless four.
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Quick answers
How long is an Olympic rowing race?
The championship distance is 2,000 metres, in lanes, for senior Olympic and world finals. Head races and some junior or coastal events use other distances. A 2,000-metre final takes roughly five and a half to eight minutes depending on the boat.
What is the difference between sculling and sweep rowing?
Scullers use two oars, one in each hand. Sweep rowers use one oar and sit on bow side or stroke side. Singles, doubles and quads are sculling boats. Pairs, fours and eights are sweep boats.
Why do rowers face backwards?
The athlete sits on a sliding seat and pushes with the legs against the footplate. The oar is the lever that sends the boat the other way. The crew therefore looks toward the stern, the direction they have come from. A coxswain, when there is one, faces the bow and sees where the boat is going.
What is a repechage?
A second-chance race. Crews that do not qualify automatically from their heat enter the repechage. Enough of them advance to the semi-finals or the final, depending on the event. Missing the heat does not end the regatta.
How many Olympic rowing events were there in Paris 2024?
Fourteen. Seven men's and seven women's openweight boats: the single, double, quad, pair, four and eight, and the lightweight doubles were no longer on the programme. Beach sprints were not an Olympic event in Paris.
Who has won the most Olympic rowing golds?
Steve Redgrave, Elisabeta Lipă and Georgeta Damian have each won five. Redgrave's five came in five successive Games. Lipă also holds the record for Olympic medals, with eight.
Rowing's best-known records are careers, not single times. A world best time on a flat lake with a tailwind is real and is kept by World Rowing, and it is also a poor way to compare a 1984 final with a 2016 one. The marks below are the ones the sport actually argues about: who won the most, who won in a row, and when the programme changed.
Times move. Five Olympic golds has not. Where a figure is a count of medals or Games, it is the count used in this book's ranking. Where it is a first, it is a date.
Records
8 medals
Most Olympic medals by a rower
Five golds, two silvers and a bronze across six Games. It is the longest Olympic medal list in the sport.
5 golds
Five Olympic golds in three Games
Pair and eight in Sydney, double and eight in Athens, eight in Beijing. The densest gold haul in women's Olympic rowing.
3 golds
First three-gold single streak
Three consecutive Olympic titles in the men's single. Pertti Karppinen matched the streak from 1976 to 1984.
3 golds
Karppinen's repeat of the single
Montreal, Moscow and Los Angeles, all in the men's single. He is the only man to match Ivanov's three in a row.
4 golds
Four Olympic golds, British sweep
Pair in 1992 and 1996, four in 2000 and 2004. Four Games, four golds, no other Olympic medal.
4 golds
Four Olympic golds, German sculling
Double and quad titles across four Games, the sculling counterpart to the British sweep run of the same years.
2 Olympic golds
An unbeaten Olympic pair
The coxless pair at London and Rio, with world titles in 2009–2011 and 2013–2015. Bond later added an eight gold in Tokyo.
5 medals
Five Games of medals in the women's single
Gold in 1996 and 2000, silver in 2004 and 2008, bronze in 2012. Two titles, and no Olympic single after 1996 in which she finished off the podium.
2 golds
Back-to-back men's Olympic singles
Athens and Beijing in the men's single, plus a bronze in Rio 2016. Defending the single is the exposed version of a title defence.
5 world titles
World single, then the Olympic gold
World champion in the men's single in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2011, and Olympic champion in 2016 by a photo finish over Damir Martin.
First women's events
Women's Olympic debut
Olympic rowing had been men-only since 1900. Montreal is the break. The women's programme then grew toward the same boat classes.
First edition
First World Championships
A world title in a non-Olympic year. Men's events came first. Women's world championships were added in 1974, again at Lucerne. Women's European championships had already run since 1954.
Rowing added
Paralympic debut
The first Paralympic rowing regatta. Classification sits beside boat class. It is a different race from the open Olympic final and a permanent part of the Games calendar since.
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