Coastal rowing in – Lightweight boats out?

At the FISA 2020 Extraordinary Congress it was decided to forward a new Olympic event programme proposal for the IOC Executive Board for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

On 10 June 2020 the IOC Executive Board (EB) agreed to maintain the previously set deadline of December 2020 to confirm the event programme and athlete quotas for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The programme proposal has been adopted to comply with the IOC EB decision that underlined the decision should be based on the following previously established key principles:

•Reducing the overall athlete quota (including for all new sports) to 10,500;

•Achieving gender equal participation across the Olympic Games at event and discipline level where possible;

• Prioritising new events that accommodate athletes within the sport’s existing quota allocation; and

• Using existing venue for any proposed new events

The Council has taken careful note of the position of the IOC on separate weight categories for sports that do not involve combat or weightlifting. The Council believes that CoastalRowing adds value for the sport -increases diversity, expands the number of countries that can participate, adds value to the Games-Youth Appeal and innovative TV programming as well as meets and will surpass all the criteria sought by the IOC EB. Therefore, the Council proposes that the Olympic rowing programme for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games should consist of the following classes:

This means that Lightweight boats will disappear from the Olympic event programme and Coastal boat will be introduced.