Forty years on and still racing - 1976 female Olympians at World Rowing Masters Regatta

In 1976 at the Montreal Olympics women raced for Olympic rowing medals for the first time. In 2016, a number of these rowers are reuniting to form a quadruple sculls especially named “The 1976 Olympians” to mark the occasion.

While three of these female Olympians raced in the coxed women’s quadruple sculls and another in the single in Montreal, they will line up in Copenhagen in the women’s quadruple sculls, in the “G” age category for participants aged 65 years or older. Also racing in Copenhagen is Oldriska Pekna and Zdneka Norkova-Ticha who raced for Czechoslovakia in Montreal. 

In the coxed quad 40 years ago, Sandra Kirby and Guylaine Bernier from Canada finished ninth while Denmark’s Judith (Solveg Seitzber Andersen) Lyster finished sixth and Norway’s Tone Pahle finished tenth in the single.

All of these women have remained actively involved in the sport of rowing over the years and are or have been FISA umpires. Bernier has also been a member of FISA’s Umpiring Commission from 1994 to 2010, while Pahle is the current chair of FISA’s Masters Rowing Commission. Both have also been involved in FISA’s women’s commission.

At the Montreal Olympics, six women’s boat classes lined up to race over a 1,000m distance: the women’s single sculls, women’s pair, women’s double sculls, women’s coxed four, women’s coxed quadruple sculls and the women’s eight.

The women’s coxed quadruple sculls featured at three successive Olympic Games, until Los Angeles 1984, and the women’s coxed four until the 1988 Games in Seoul. These were eventually replaced by the women’s four (featured at one Olympic Regatta only at Barcelona 1992), the women’s quadruple sculls since Seoul 1988 and the lightweight women’s double sculls since Atlanta 1996.

In Seoul, the racing distance for women was increased to match the men’s distance of 2,000m. The Olympic programme for women’s rowing as we know it today with six Olympic boat classes has been standing for the past 20 years, since Atlanta 1996.

The number of female rowers participating at the Games has risen gradually. Representing around 30 per cent of participation in rowing since the 1988 Games, female participation then increased to 40 per cent at the most recent Olympic Rowing Regatta in Rio.

As a result of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Olympic Agenda 2020, full gender equality and increased universality will be implemented into rowing by the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Proposals for a gender-balanced event programme, not exceeding the current total of 550 athletes, have been exchanged between the national rowing federations and the World Rowing Federation, FISA.

In February 2017, the new Olympic rowing programme will be voted by FISA’s Extraordinary Congress. This programme will then be recommended to the IOC in view of the IOC making a final choice in June 2017 of all sports events that will be featured on the Tokyo Olympic programme.