AWhile most rowers paddle rivers in wind and rain during the dark winter months, a new breed is honing their skills in brighter climates, surrounded by sun, sand and waves, all the while dreaming of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Of the 17 sports that proposed an additional discipline to the International Olympic Committee, rowing came out on top, with the beach sprint format added to the Los Angeles 2028 program. While many may have noticed the addition of five new sports: baseball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash, there is a mini-revolution happening on the water for the sport, which will no longer have an athletic category, but will feature five inshore rowing events in 2028.
Coastal Rowing Beach Sprint shakes up this most traditional and predictable of sports by taking the core elements of rowing – requiring extreme levels of physical fitness and mental toughness – and adding new levels of risk and a beach party atmosphere. The discipline features a one-on-one format and begins on land with athletes running along the beach and jumping into their boats at the water's edge, then racing around a buoy before racing back to land, jumping out of their boats and racing up the beach. With frequent close-range finishes, their final move is to launch themselves into the air, hit the finish signal first, and land, usually with a face full of sand.
In a world where people have more choice in which sports to watch and participate in, and the world's minor sports federations are considering how to remain popular and relevant, coastal rowing offers a less predictable and more interesting format, while reconnecting with a historical activity that dates back to 1900 BC in Ancient Egypt, where it was an important mode of transport.
We may be primarily a football nation, but this is a great addition for Team GB as we also excel in seated sports and boats are part of our national island identity. We are also getting new impetus to reinvigorate sport and activity along the coastline in areas that have become some of the most socially and economically challenged parts of each country of origin. The Welsh Government has noted that its main sporting events are being directed to major cities and has recognized the importance of reaching out and involving different sections of the population by hosting the World Coastal Rowing Championships in Saundersfoot and developing the Wales International Coastal Center there.
Scotland has embraced the sport, with the University of St Andrews investing in wider flat boats used for rowing in strong waves and becoming one of 11 UK coastal rowing academies at East Sands Beach. Meanwhile, Glenarm in County Antrim hosted the All-Ireland Coastal Rowing Championships this summer in both Beach Sprint and Coastal Endurance Rowing. England's coastal academies include clubs in Tynemouth, Scarborough, Whitby and Lowestoft, as well as many south coast clubs with extensive experience in this activity. Sandbanks in Dorset hosted the first Commonwealth Beach Sprint Championships in 2018, followed by Namibia in 2022 and Barbados the following weekend.
Britain's Gwyn Batten, a member of the silver-medal winning four sculls crew from Sydney in 2000 and one of the first British women's rowers to reach the podium, has plotted the logistics and politics to get to this point. As chairman of World Rowing's Coastal Commission in his spare time (and deputy chief executive of England Volleyball the rest of the time), Batten describes the two disciplines of coastal and classic rowing as “the yin and yang of sport”, different but complementary, both at their core about brilliant rowing skill and sportsmanship, but each such a contrasting spectacle to watch or participate in.
Boat costs and access issues have been intelligently reduced, with wider boats suitable for beginners and the highest level racers, as opposed to incredibly narrow hulls that require considerable skill to master in stillwater rowing. Countries do not have to move their equipment because there is a fleet of boats available, which adds another unpredictable factor as competitors will not be able to try out the actual boat they will be racing on until two days before the competition. At this stage they will need to study the boats and in particular the position of the fins on the hull, which will be key to developing optimal methods for “buoy rounding”, all the while knowing that they will have to judge everything again the day they see the size of the waves Mother Nature decides to throw at them.
New Zealand's Emma Twigg, a five-time Olympian, has renewed her love of boating by taking up the inshore discipline and winning the recent World Championships in Turkey. Twigg told me she fell in love with beach sprints because of the “closeness of the racing,” the “beach volleyball atmosphere,” and the fact that you can watch the entire race from start to finish in a mini-stadium, avoiding one of the insurmountable problems of Olympic rowing in still water, where you can never see the entire 2km course from one vantage point.
Like their classic stillwater brethren, inshore rowers will still have to develop a huge physiology that will allow them to both run and endure up to three races a day. Each race is a grueling, all-out effort with arms twisting and shoulders shaking to make a 180-degree turn around a buoy mid-race. New Zealand's Olympic champion Finn Hamill missed the mark by inches and was knocked out at the recent world championships, while heavy favorite Germany faltered in the beach sprint semi-final, allowing Spain's Anders Martin to take the lead in the dying seconds to meet reigning American champion Chris Buck in the final, who held on to retain his title. Both existing rowers and others coming from coastal clubs are moving into this new discipline, while sports scientists and sports directors work out what future coastal Olympians will look like.
The world's best coastal rowers will share the Long Beach site in Los Angeles with open water swimmers, windsurfers, foil and kitesurf champions during the two weeks of the Games and show a different side to this seemingly rigorous sport. Rowing's answer to snocross, BMX and beach volleyball is coming to Los Angeles, but if you live near the coast, it may soon be coming to a beach near you.
