Rowing (sport)
Rowing, often called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars are attached to the boat using rowlocks, while paddles are not connected to the boat. Rowing is divided into two disciplines: sculling and sweeping. In sculling, each rower holds two oars, one in each hand, while in sweeping each rower holds one oar with both hands. There are several boat classes in which athletes may compete, ranging from single sculls, occupied by one person, to shells with eight rowers and a coxswain, called eights. There are a wide variety of course types and formats of racing, but most elite and championship level racing is conducted on calm water courses long with several lanes marked using buoys.
Modern rowing as a competitive sport can be traced to the early 17th century when professional watermen held races on the River Thames in London, England. Often prizes were offered by the London Guilds and Livery Companies. Amateur competition began towards the end of the 18th century with the arrival of "boat clubs" at British public schools. Similarly, clubs were formed at colleges within Oxford and Cambridge on the programme for the 1896 games, but racing did not take place due to bad weather. Male rowers have competed since the 1900 Summer Olympics. Women's rowing was added to the Olympic programme in 1976. Today, there are fourteen boat classes which race at the Olympics. In addition, the sport's governing body, the World Rowing Federation, holds the annual World Rowing Championships with twenty-two boat classes.
Across six continents, 150 countries now have rowing federations that participate in the sport. Major domestic competitions take place in dominant rowing nations and include The Boat Race and Henley Royal Regatta in the United Kingdom, the Australian Rowing Championships in Australia, the Harvard–Yale Regatta and Head of the Charles Regatta in the United States, and the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta in Canada. Many other competitions often exist for racing between clubs, schools, and universities in each nation.
History
An Egyptian funerary inscription of 1430 BC records that the warrior Amenhotep II was also renowned for his feats of oarsmanship, though there is some disagreement among scholars over whether there were rowing contests in ancient Egypt. In the Aeneid, Virgil mentions rowing forming part of the funeral games arranged by Aeneas in honour of his father. In the 13th century, Venetian festivals called regata included boat races among others.The first known "modern" rowing races began from competition among the professional watermen in the United Kingdom that provided ferry and taxi service on the River Thames in London. Prizes for wager races were often offered by the London Guilds and Livery Companies or wealthy owners of riverside houses.
The oldest surviving such race, Doggett's Coat and Badge was first contested in 1715 and is still held annually from London Bridge to Chelsea. During the 19th century these races were to become numerous and popular, attracting large crowds. Prize matches amongst professionals similarly became popular on other rivers throughout Great Britain in the 19th century, notably on the Tyne. In America, the earliest known race dates back to 1756 in New York, when a pettiauger defeated a Cape Cod whaleboat in a race.
Amateur competition in England began towards the end of the 18th century the age before technology. Documentary evidence from this period is sparse, but it is known that the Monarch Boat Club of Eton College and the Isis Club of Westminster School were both in existence in the 1790s. The Star Club and Arrow Club in London for gentlemen amateurs were also in existence before 1800. At the University of Oxford bumping races were first organised in 1815 when Brasenose College and Jesus College boat clubs had the first annual race while at Cambridge the first recorded races were in 1827. Brasenose beat Jesus to win Oxford University's first Head of the River; the two clubs claim to be the oldest established boat clubs in the world. The Boat Race between Oxford University and Cambridge University first took place in 1829, and was the second intercollegiate sporting event. The interest in the first Boat Race and subsequent matches led the town of Henley-on-Thames to begin hosting an annual regatta in 1839.
Founded in 1818, Leander Club is the world's oldest public rowing club. The second oldest club which still exists is the Der Hamburger und Germania Ruder Club which was founded 1836 and marked the beginning of rowing as an organized sport in Germany. During the 19th century, as in England, wager matches in North America between professionals became very popular attracting vast crowds. Narragansett Boat Club was founded in 1838 exclusively for rowing. During an 1837 parade in Providence, R.I, a group of boatmen were pulling a longboat on wheels, which carried the oldest living survivor of the 1772 Gaspee Raid. They boasted to the crowd that they were the fastest rowing crew on the Bay. A group of Providence locals took issue with this and challenged them to race, which the Providence group summarily won. The six-man core of that group went on in 1838 to found the Narragansett Boat Club. Detroit Boat Club was founded in 1839 and is the second oldest continuously operated rowing club in the U.S. In 1843, the first American college rowing club was formed at Yale University. The Harvard–Yale Regatta is the oldest intercollegiate sporting event in the United States, having been contested every year since 1852.
The Schuylkill Navy is an association of amateur rowing clubs of Philadelphia. Founded in 1858, it is the oldest amateur athletic governing body in the United States. The member clubs are all on the Schuylkill River where it flows through Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, mostly on the historic Boathouse Row. The success of the Schuylkill Navy and similar organizations contributed heavily to the extinction of professional rowing and the sport's current status as an amateur sport. At its founding, it had nine clubs; today, there are 12. At least 23 other clubs have belonged to the Navy at various times. Many of the clubs have a rich history, and have produced a large number of Olympians and world-class competitors.
The sport's governing body, Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Aviron, was founded in 1892, and is the oldest international sports federation in the Olympic movement.
FISA first organized a European Rowing Championships in 1893. An annual World Rowing Championships was introduced in 1962. Rowing has also been conducted at the Olympic Games since 1900.
History of women's rowing
Women row in all boat classes, from single scull to coxed eights, across the same age ranges and standards as men, from junior amateur through university-level to elite athlete. Typically men and women compete in separate crews although mixed crews and mixed team events also take place. Coaching for women is similar to that for men. The world's first women's rowing team was formed in 1896 at the Furnivall Sculling Club in London. The club, with signature colors a very distinct myrtle and gold, began as a women's club, but eventually allowed the admittance of men in 1901.The first international women's races were the 1954 European Rowing Championships. The introduction of women's rowing at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal increased the growth of women's rowing because it created the incentive for national rowing federations to support women's events. Rowing at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London included six events for women compared with eight for men. In the US, rowing is an NCAA sport for women but not for men; though it is one of the country's oldest collegiate sports, the difference is in large part due to the requirements of Title IX.
At the international level, women's rowing traditionally has been dominated by Eastern European countries, such as Romania, Russia, and Bulgaria, although other countries such as Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Great Britain and New Zealand often field competitive teams. The United States also has had very competitive crews, and in recent years these crews have become even more competitive given the surge in women's collegiate rowing.
Now there is usually the same number of girls and boys in a group.
Technique
While rowing, the athlete sits in the boat facing toward the stern and uses the oars, which are held in place by oarlocks, to propel the boat forward. Rowing is distinguished from paddling in that the oar is attached to the boat using an oarlock or a rowing gate, where in paddling there is no oarlock or attachment of the paddle to the boat.The rowing stroke may be characterized by two fundamental reference points: the catch, which is placement of the oar spoon in the water, and the extraction, also known as the finish or release, when the rower removes the oar spoon from the water.
After the oar is placed in the water at the catch, the rower applies pressure to the oar levering the boat forward which is called the drive phase of the stroke. Once the rower extracts the oar from the water, the recovery phase begins, setting up the rower's body for the next stroke.
At the catch, the rower places the oar in the water and applies pressure to the oar by pushing the seat toward the bow of the boat by extending the legs, thus pushing the boat through the water. The point of placement of the spoon in the water is a relatively fixed point about which the oar serves as a lever to propel the boat. As the rower's legs approach full extension, the rower pivots the torso toward the bow of the boat and then finally pulls the arms towards his or her chest. The hands meet the chest right above the diaphragm.
At the end of the stroke, with the oar spoon still in the water, the hands drop slightly to unload the oar so that spring energy stored in the bend of the oar gets transferred to the boat which eases removing the oar from the water and minimizes energy wasted on lifting water above the surface.
The recovery phase follows the drive. The recovery starts with the extraction and involves coordinating the body movements with the goal to move the oar back to the catch position. In extraction, the rower pushes down on the oar handle to quickly lift the spoon out of the water and rapidly rotates the oar so that the spoon is parallel to the water. This process is sometimes referred to as feathering the blade. Simultaneously, the rower pushes the oar handle away from the chest. The spoon should emerge from the water perpendicular or square and be feathered immediately once clear of the water. After feathering and extending the arms, the rower pivots the body forward. Once the hands are past the knees, the rower compresses the legs which moves the seat towards the stern of the boat. The leg compression occurs relatively slowly compared to the rest of the stroke, which affords the rower a moment to recover, and allows the boat to glide through the water. The gliding of the boat through the water during recovery is often called run.
A controlled slide is necessary to maintain momentum and achieve optimal boat run. However, various teaching methods disagree about the optimal relation in timing between drive and recovery. Near the end of the recovery, the rower squares the oar spoon into perpendicular orientation with respect to the water and begins another stroke.