Rowing broadens its base – the communities

Significant milestones have included:

• Introduction of para-rowing, first at the 2002 World Rowing Championships and then as a Paralympic event starting in 2008.

• Ever-increasing opportunities for masters rowers (those 27 years and older) and a World Rowing Masters Regatta that continues to grow in popularity. Some rowing clubs are now dominated by masters rowers.

• Making the most of non-flat water especially in coastal regions with coastal rowing. Considered the ‘mountain biking’ of the sport of rowing, the first official World Rowing Coastal Championships was in 2007 but racing has stretch back for many years. Much of the original rowing racing was done on the sea.

• A global explosion of indoor rowing as more than simply a cross training tool for on-water racers, but as a rowing discipline in its own right.

• Embracing age group rowing with the inclusion of the World Rowing Junior Championships (rowers 18 years and younger) and the World Rowing Under 23 Championships.

• Recognition of the importance of university rowing and the growing importance of the University Games.

• As of 2016, FISA now comprises 150 member National Federations with American Samoa making it 151 after joining this month.

Encouraging inclusion

“Up until around the year 2000, Olympic sport had been very much focused on the Olympics and getting to the Olympics,” says Sheila Stephens Desbans, FISA’s Development Director. “There wasn’t much broadening of sports like ours.

“There was a growing awareness that sports needed to look outside their traditional group and look for areas that encourage more inclusion beyond their base,” says Stephens Desbans. “We were concerned from a development perspective how we would support this, but it became evident that by focusing on growing participation around the world, we could grow access to the Olympics as well as rowing for its own sake.”

The spirit of this fundamental shift in attitude across sport was officially embraced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with the adoption of their Agenda 2020 initiative in 2014.

“Agenda 2020 has had a big influence,” says Stephens Desbans. “The IOC is actively encouraging all international federations to have more people just taking part in sport.”

The development reflects one of FISA’s guiding principles ‘to encourage universal development of rowing in all its forms’. “The top of the pyramid will take care of itself,” says Stephens Desbans, “if you have more people involved in sport.”

A boost for non-traditional rowing nations has been through coastal rowing. “The more people we can bring to the sport through coastal and indoor, masters and para the better,” says Stephens Desbans.

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Moving indoors

Nothing demonstrates the broader spirit of rowing more than the rise of indoor rowing.

“The big thing is that indoor rowing is so accessible,” says Dick Dreissigacker, co-founder of indoor rowing manufacturer Concept2. “Anyone can do it. The rower is a good movement for indoor exercise. “People recognised that as far back as the 1800s and early 1900s with early exercise rowing machines.”

FISA has recognised the potential that such an accessible form of rowing provides. “It is something we saw as an opportunity,” says Stephens Desbans. “This is accessing a whole new group of people who are part of the rowing family, but we haven’t had contact with before. We estimate something like half a million people involved with CrossFit indoor rowing alone; that number grows even more when we look at the greater indoor rowing community around the world.”

“A lot of CrossFit boxes (gyms) have rowing machines,” says Dreissigacker. “They have embraced indoor rowing and that has really picked things up.” He also points to indoor ergometer spin classes at gyms becoming more popular.

Concept2 and FISA have worked together to grow the appeal of the sport through major initiatives such as the annual World Indoor Sprints and, for the first time, inclusion of indoor rowing in the 2017 World Games (a platform for the most widely popular non-Olympic sports).

“My feeling is it (indoor rowing) is still mostly an untapped opportunity for rowing,” concludes Dreissigacker. “There are people now who are aware of what rowing is like. We know that people tend to get addicted to it in a healthy way and indoor rowing is easy and accessible, which means there is room to keep it growing and growing.”

Accessibility

Just as the ergometer is helping make rowing more accessible to huge swaths of a previously non-rowing population, the on-water sport has also seen growth particularly in masters and para communities.

FISA’s Para-Rowing Commission chairperson, Kim Fai Ho points out the “inclusion of rowing at the Paralympic Games for three successful Games” and that the World Rowing Championships has become an “integrated regatta” as major factors in the “positive impact of rowing for all.”
By opening up the sport to persons with a range of abilities, para-rowing has demonstrated that rowing really can be a sport for all.

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Relevance through community

“This is something I think about a lot,” says Stephens Desbans. “The reason that rowing is and will stay relevant is that rowing is something that creates a community and a family for people and the experience of being out on the water in a coastal boat or a racing shell brings real joy to people. We are living in a world where people need and seek to have that sense of community and accountability to themselves and others.”