Discontinued Olympic Rowing Events
Rowing has been on every modern Olympic program, except the first. Rowing was scheduled for the 1896 Athens Olympics but was canceled due to poor weather. In the Olympic Games of 1900 and 1904 there were several other categories of events that are not currently in use: Junior, Novice, Association, and Intermediate.
A number of other boat classes have been on the Olympic program at one stage, but have been subsequently dropped. These discontinued boat classes include:
- 17-Man Naval Rowing Boats (1906)
- Six-Man Naval Rowing Boats (1906)
- Men's Coxed Four with Inriggers (1912)
- Men's Coxed Pair (1900-1992)
- Men's Coxed Four (1900-1992)
- Women's Coxed Four (1976-1988)
- Women's Coxed Quad Sculls (1976-1984)
- Women's Coxless Four (1992)
More Notes
- Canoeing has also seen a number of its events discontinued, including the 10,000 m race for the folding Kayak.
- Other rowing races to be discontiunued include the pair-oared shell with coxswain, first appearing in 1900. In that year, the Dutch winners enlisted the help of a passing boy as temporary coxswain. Unfortunately the boy returned to the streets of Paris without leaving his name or age. The official result credits the gold medal jointly to Francois Antoine Brandt, Roelof Klein and "unknown French boy".
- Men's races have been raced over the standard 2,000 m except in 1900 (1,750 m), 1904 (1.5 miles), 1906 (various), 1908 (1.5 miles) and 1948 (1,880 m). The 1908 and 1948 events were held over the Henley Royal Regatta course.
- The women's rowing races were held over 1,000 m until 1988, when they were changed to 2,000 m.
- In the modern games, the races are held between six boats side by side, earlier games were limited to 2 or 3 boats.
Related Pages
- Rowing at the Olympics
- All about the sport of Rowing
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