Rowing.

Rowing - cyclical sport. Athletes are in boats and rowing backwards, unlike rowing and canoeing. The cost of the boat is approximately equal to the price of the car of the middle class. The most widespread and popular in Western Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand and Romania. Rowing is included in the Olympic program.

Types of Rowing.

Competition between men and women are held separately. The composition of the boat can be one, two, four or eight rowers. Also differ in the wing and paired crews. There are weight classes.

In the Olympic program consists of the following types:

Singles - men and women; Deuce - male and female pair, male and female swing; male and female lightweight; Four - male and female swing; male and female lightweight; Eight - male and female swing the steering;

Species not included in the Olympic program, but played in the world championships, continents and countries, as well as commercial competition:

Deuce - male and female swing the steering; male and female paired with the steering; Four - male and female pair, male and female pair with the steering, male and female swing the steering; Eight - male and female paired with the steering;

Steering weight is limited (if it is less than normal, then put into the boat ballast), and its floor is independent of the sex of the crew. In the women's crew may be steering a man, and vice versa. Exception - Olympic Games (there should all be of the same sex).

Occasionally commercial tournaments are also held competitions mixed fours and eights, half consisting of women and men.

Achievements of Russian athletes.

During Soviet times, our rowers consistently won prizes in major competitions. Since the mid-1980s, advances in decline. The finals of major competitions after the collapse of the Soviet Union was already considered a good result. Only at the Athens Olympics in 2004, the four men managed to win gold medals.

Rowing tradition.

In the West, rowing has a long tradition, which strictly followed for several centuries. Since the beginning of the XIX century on the River Thames in London conducted a classic Royal Regatta between the crews of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Length distance of 2 kilometers (except for a few classic races in the UK). Very rarely (more on youth and veteran racing) the distance is one or one and a half kilometers.

At the start, do not use the technique - the boat to keep the starting signal the race stewards. After winning the race steering thrown into the water of a lake or rowing canal (where the race was won). If the crew without coxswain, after winning rowers while jumping into the water, holding hands.