Category: Coastal Rowing

Coastal rowing in – Lightweight boats out?

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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:

MenWomenMixed Gender
Single ScullsSingle ScullsCoastal Rowing Double Sculls
Double ScullsDouble ScullsCoastal Rowing Solo
Quadruple ScullsQuadruple ScullsCoastal Rowing Solo
PairPair
FourFour
EightEight

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

Feature: Rowing in Faroe Islands

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Rowing is considered the national sport of the Faroe Islands. The Faroe Island Rowing federation is in 2020 celebrating 40 years anniversary with 33 rowing clubs with a total of 136 boats consisting of a mix of boats for 5, 6, 8 and 10 rowers. These boats are traditional open Faroe boats that are different from the coastal boats used in FISA Coastal rowing regattas. This boat type has now also been introduced to the Faroe Rowing clubs so hopefully we will see strong Faroe Island rowers participate in the FISA Coastal rowing regattas.

There are no inland rowing venues. All regattas take place in the ocean with race distance from 1000 to 2000 meters in tough water conditions which means that the rowers in addition to racing against their competitor boats also has to fight against the wind, waves and currents from the open North Atlantic sea. 

The rowing season is short, from early June to late July. There are seven rowing races held individually at regional village festivals. The final race is held in late July during   St. Olavs Day which is the National holiday of Faroe Island.

With a short rowing season due to the sea and weather condition indoor rowing has grown considerably in the Faroe Island. Strong Faroe rowers participate in various big indoor regattas in Scandinavia and the Worldrowing indoor rowing championships.