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Tuesday, September 19
Rowing Fan Guide
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IN THE CROSSHAIRS |
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ESPN.com puts Olympic rowing In the Crosshairs with our interactive fan guide feature. Check out each sport's fan guide for more In the Crosshairs looks at the Olympic sports.
Rowing in the
Crosshairs
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Olympic competition dates: Sept. 17-24
Venue: Sydney International Regatta Centre, Penrith Lakes
The outlook
While a record 51 countries qualified for Sydney, the
United States is the only one to send a full contingent of 14 boats
and 48 athletes. Australia and Germany each are sending 10 boats.
U.S. hopes for gold are highest in the men's eight, an event
Americans dominated from 1900-56 but haven't won since 1964. U.S.
crews have won the last three world championships. The Sydney crew
will include four men who were on all three boats and four more who
were on the last two. The only newcomer is Dave Simon, a sophomore
at Brown.
Britain's Steve Redgrave, who won gold at the past four
Olympics, is switching from coxless pairs to the coxless four, an
event won in 1992 and 1996 by the crew known as Australia's Oarsome
Foursome.
The finer points
Equipment: In rowing, the competitor faces the rear of the boat and wields an oar that pivots in an oarlock, which acts like a fulcrum. The boats are called shells, with a subclassification of sculls. All sculls are shells, but not all shells are sculls. In a scull, each crew member rows with two oars, one on either side, called sculling oars. Other shells have one oar, a sweep oar, per crew member. The sweep rower pulls his oar with both hands as he rows on one side of the boat; the rower next in line rows on the opposite side. Certain crew configurations may or may not include an extra member, called a coxswain (pronounced cox'n), who does not row but uses a rudder to steer and also coaches the rowers.
Competition: Olympic races are run on a 2,000-meter course. A system of heats, semifinals and repechages (second-chance rounds) is used to determine who will be in the finals. Six crews (three from each semifinal) reach the final. Men and women each compete in: single, double and quadruple
sculls, lightweight double scull, the eight and coxless pair. Men
also race in coxless four and lightweight coxless four.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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