Rowing has been part of the Summer Olympics since its debut in the 1900 Games. Rowing was on the program at the 1896 Summer Olympics but was cancelled due to bad weather. Only men were allowed to compete until the women's events were introduced at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal which gave national federations the incentive to support women's events and catalysed growth in women's rowing. Lightweight rowing events were introduced to the games in 1996. Qualifying for the rowing events is under the jurisdiction of the World Rowing Federation. World Rowing predates the modern Olympics and was the first international sport federation to join the modern Olympic movement.
Vesta Rowing Club is a rowing club based on the Tideway of the River Thames in Putney, London, England. It was founded in 1870.
The Adelaide University Boat Club is a rowing club affiliated with the University of Adelaide. The club was founded in 1881, and in 1896 helped to form the Adelaide University Sports Association. The main clubrooms, donated by Robert Barr Smith in 1909, are located on the north bank of the River Torrens on War Memorial Drive, adjacent to the Adelaide University Sports Grounds. The shed has two boat bays, a gym and weights room and a small bar. The club also leases a secondary boatshed at the South Australian Rowing Association complex on Military Road at West Lakes, and also trains regularly at Port Adelaide's North Arm Creek and Murray Bridge. Members have included rowers of all levels, from total beginners to Olympic Gold Medallists. The club shares the nickname "The Blacks" with the Adelaide University Football Club.
Frances Houghton MBE is a 5 time Olympic rower (2000–2016), 4 times World Champion and 3 times Olympic Silver medallist.
Sarah Ann Patricia Cook is an Australian former representative rower. She was a six-time national champion and a dual Olympian who represented at senior World Rowing Championships from 2006 to 2011. Since competitive retirement she has been a rowing coach, commentator and a sports administrator at the highest levels. She has been a board member and since 2021, the Chief Operating Officer of Rowing Australia. Since 2022 she has been a member of the World Rowing Council representing Oceania. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Rowing Australia, and a World Rowing Council member.
Olympia Aldersey is an Australian rower. She is an Australian national champion, a dual Olympian and was a 2019 World Champion in the coxless four. In 2014 she set a world's fastest ever time (6:37.31) in a women's double scull over 2000m, a record which has stood since. She rowed in the Australian women's eight at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Daniel Noonan is an Australian former representative rower. He was a national champion, a world champion, a dual Olympian and an Olympic medal winner.
Simon Burgess is an Australian national champion, two-time World Champion, three-time Olympian and dual Olympic silver medal-winning lightweight rower. He represented Australia ten times at World Rowing Championships between 1990 and 2002. He won world and national championships in both sculls and in sweep-oared boat classes during an eighteen-year elite level career.
Paul Reedy is an Australian former rower. He is a dual Olympian, an Olympic and Commonwealth Games silver medalist who competed over a seventeen-year period at the elite level. He was a fourteen-time Australian national champion across both sculling and sweep-oared boats and then coached six Australian crews to national championship titles. He later coached at the London Rowing Club and was appointed as British national Head Coach from 2009. He took Great Britain's lightweight women's sculling crews to Olympic and World Championship gold medals in 2012 and 2016.
Jane Robinson is an Australian former rower - a national champion, three-time World Champion and triple Olympian. She competed at the Summer Olympics in 1996, 2000 and 2004; and at World Rowing Championships in 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, and 2003. She won World Championships as both a sculler and a sweep-oared rower. She attended Toorak College in Mount Eliza, Victoria.
Paul Anthony Thompson MBE is an Australian elite level rowing coach and former rower. As a rower he was an Australian under-age champion, won a silver medal at the 1985 U23 World Championships and rowed in senior King's Cup eights for both South Australia and New South Wales. He has coached Australian and British crews to World Championship titles and Olympic medals including taking Kate Slatter and Megan Still to Australia's first women's Olympic rowing gold at Atlanta 1996. By 2012 he was Great Britain's head coach for women and lightweights and took British crews to three gold and two silver medals at London 2012. Since 2022 he has been Rowing Australia's High Performance Director.
Polly Swann is a British rower and a member of the Great Britain Rowing Team. She is a former World and European champion in the women's coxless pairs, having won the 2013 World Rowing Championships at Chungju in Korea, and the 2014 European Rowing Championships at Belgrade, Serbia with her partner Helen Glover. At the 2016 Summer Olympics she won a silver medal in the women's eight.
Grace Elizabeth Prendergast is a former New Zealand sweep rower. She is a 15-time national champion in the premier category, an Olympic champion, a five-time world champion and the current (2022) world champion in the coxless pair. She grew up in Christchurch, where she started rowing for the Avon Rowing Club in 2007. She competed at the Tokyo Olympics in two boat classes and won gold in the coxless pair and a silver in the eight and set a new world's best time in the pair. Various parties, including the World Rowing Federation, expected her to win medals in Tokyo. She was the highest ranked female rower in the world twice in a row in 2019 and 2021. Since 2014, her rowing partner in the coxless pair has been Kerri Gowler. Prendergast is also a Boat Race winner, having competed as part of Cambridge University Boat Club's (CUBC) women's crew in 2022. She retired from professional rowing in October 2022.
Michael Brake is a New Zealand rower. He is a dual Olympian and won Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020.
Lyall McCarthy OAM is a former Australian national champion lightweight rower and national rowing coach. He has coached Australian crews to gold medals at the World Rowing Championships and the Olympic Games.
Sonia Mills is an Australian former rower – an Australian national champion, world champion and an Olympian. She had world championship success in both sculls and in sweep-oared boat classes. She competed in the women's double sculls event at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Alexander (Steve) Purnell is an Australian rower. He is an Olympic and national champion who has represented at underage and senior world championships. In 2018 in an Australian eight, he won the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta. He rowed in the bow seat of the Australian men's coxless four to a gold medal victory at the Tokyo Olympics.
Katrina Bateman is an Australian former representative rower. She is a ten-time Australian national champion, winning four national titles in the single year of 2015 and rowing in successful Victorian Queen's Cup crews for six consecutive years from 2011-2016. She was twice a medallist at underage world championships and has won gold, silver and bronze medals at World Rowing Cups between 2013 and 2019.
Phoebe Spoors is a New Zealand rower. From Christchurch, she was an unused reserve in the New Zealand women's eight at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in which her elder sister Lucy won a silver medal. In an unusual career progression for a New Zealand rower, she never represented the country as an age-group rower but joined the national team after some years in the United States for fulltime rowing at the University of Washington combined with tertiary study.
Kirstyn Moana Goodger is a New Zealand rower. Originally from Auckland and now based in Cambridge, she took up rowing in 2005. She has won one international medal for New Zealand – a silver at the 2009 World Rowing Junior Championships in France. From 2011 to 2014, she rowed for the Washington Huskies while studying oceanography at the University of Washington. Upon her return to New Zealand, she joined the Wairau Rowing Club and is one of the premier rowers who belongs to the Central Rowing Performance Centre. Goodger has been an elite rower for the national squad since 2017. She has represented her country at several World Rowing Cups, the 2017 and the 2019 World Rowing Championships. At the latter regatta, she managed to qualify the women's quad scull boat category for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She was chosen as one of ten rowers for the New Zealand women's eight and travelled to the Games with the team. The woman's eight squad would come away with a silver medal in the eight at the 2020 games. Goodger has won four premier national titles in the women's eight. She worked as a scientist and engineer for consultancy Beca in their ports and coastal team.
