Where women’s rowing is now — and where it goes next
By Annamarie Phelps CBE OLY, Vice-President of World Rowing. Image: Ben Tufnell
Rowing is a sport as old as travel. Throughout humanity’s history women have travelled by boat, often rowing themselves and have raced competitively for hundreds of years. Even so, the Women’s Boat Race celebrating 100 years in 2027 is a monumental milestone, as is this year’s 50th anniversary of women rowing at the Olympic Games, not only because of the credibility that such heritage brings, but also for the visibility and progress these breakthrough moments can deliver.
Since the 1970s the sport’s international federation, World Rowing, has been deliberate in strengthening its commitment to equality: leveling up medal opportunities at World Championships and the Games, and recently introducing mixed crew events to the World Championship programme alongside existing mixed para boat classes. The newest discipline, Beach Sprint Rowing (designed by a British woman, Guin Batten) included in both the Youth Olympic Games and Los Angeles Olympic Games is also, by design, gender equal.
Women’s rowing has never been healthier, and it hasn’t been by chance. The British team has gone from strength to strength since the advent of National Lottery Funding, which provided equal opportunity to talented athletes regardless of gender. Its introduction in 1997 can be credited with facilitating Great Britain’s first female Olympic rowing medal in Sydney 2000 and the gold rush of London 2012, when not one but three female crews won gold.
The impact of increased visibility and success at international competition has inspired women to take up the sport, grown participation and improved performance. In the UK the number of women rowing has risen by 151% over the last 25 years across a wide age range. Today women make up 48% of rowers, up from 34% in 2002. In fact, British Rowing clubs say women make up around 60% of participants on Learn to Row courses, and the UK is not the only country seeing such a re-balance.
In the same year as those first gold medals, The Boat Race announced that the women’s race would be held on the Tideway on the same course and day as the men’s race from 2015, with TV broadcast and equal sponsorship. The impact of that announcement was immediate: students wanted to extend courses, talented athletes from overseas were attracted to both universities to compete in one of the most famous rowing races in the world. This concentration of talent, alongside professional full-time coaches and support, significantly raised the quality of training and racing. Suddenly relative newcomers to the sport could train alongside Olympic and World Champions such as Grace Prendergast and Ruby Tew at Cambridge or Caryn Davies at Oxford.
Kieran Clarke’s analysis of the men’s and women’s Head of the River Races in London, both held over the same distance and course as The Boat Race, only in reverse, suggests the healthy growth in entry numbers has not diminished the depth of field. In fact, Clarke identifies a significant shift in the performance level of women’s rowing, with the women’s race now showing stronger depth at every marker in the top 100 compared with the men’s.
Other events have recognised the opportunity women’s rowing can bring. Just as the Fawley Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta transformed junior boys sculling, the Diamond Jubilee has delivered an uplift in girls’ sculling, with British women now regularly winning World and Olympic medals in sculling events. I have no doubt the new club and university events for women – the Princess of Wales, Danesfield and Queen Victoria – will see some of the best and closest races, encouraging more investment, an increase in quality and depth of racing, and more inspiring athletes challenging for the prestige of a “red box.”
The introduction of women’s events across Henley Royal Regatta, the move of the Women’s Boat Race to the Tideway and the success of the GB Women’s team, have played an important part in growing participation in the UK. However, I would also note that until recently a lack of gender specific research and science behind women’s training programmes held female athletes back from optimising performances. Whilst recognition of this deficiency has improved there is still a long way to go: only 8% of sports science and sports medicine research is estimated to be based on female athletes. Imagine how much potential there still is once an understanding of gender-specific training, psychology recovery and equipment, is freely available to all women’s programmes globally, not only optimising their training but helping avoid injury and retaining them longer in the sport.
Participation is not the only measure of progress. Increasingly attention is being focussed on leadership, and whilst World Rowing has an Executive Committee made up of 44% women, and a Council of 48% women, there are serious signs of a dearth of women in the pipeline for boards and committees at all levels, as umpires, and most worrying perhaps, as coaches. For this we need to look to clubs and federations around the world to increase the base, retain and develop talent.
Globally men make up more than 90% of presidents of national rowing federations. No single continent has more than 22% female presidents (Oceania) and Europe sits at a very uncomfortable 11%, despite targets and quotas set by funding agencies and governments. The picture is also concerning when we look at the average makeup of Boards or Executive Committees at national federations across the world which shows we are still not achieving the minimum gender balance of 30% women. With this lack of representation around decision-making tables in federations, it is not surprising there is a shortage of female candidates nominated for World Rowing’s Commissions: only one, the Athlete Commission, reaching 50% men and women. Clubs, federations and continental bodies will need to be deliberate in their efforts to be more female-friendly: from changing facilities to committee meeting times. Without a voice at the club, decisions will be made that don’t take account of women’s needs, and without a welcoming environment, retention will be a challenge, numbers will fall and future leaders won’t be identified. Every club and organisation has a duty to ensure they are embedding an inclusive and welcoming environment.
Over the last century, the sport of rowing has been genuinely transformed by the inclusion of women and diversification of rowing disciplines. As sports evolve from privileged pastime to a human right, every sport is reviewing its membership and attractiveness. I am optimistic that rowing has a sustainable and successful future. Our big marquee events are commercially focussed, recognising the need to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, and understanding that this necessitates more than participation and representation. There are brilliant people working in research, and unprecedented momentum behind women’s sport. There will be more balanced senior leadership, more great stories of female athletes, and more great female athletes to create those stories, because that is what rowing needs to thrive.
The future is bright, believe it. As we celebrate the centenary of the first Women’s Boat Race in 2027, we honour not only the courage of the women of Oxford and Cambridge who took to the water in 1927, but also their legacy. The foundations they laid have transformed the sport over the past hundred years, and by continuing to champion participation, performance, research and leadership for women, we can ensure that their pioneering spirit shapes the next century of rowing as profoundly as it has the first.
First published in the University of Cambridge’s Women’s Boat Race Centenary magazine.