Lightweight rowing
Encyclopedia
Lightweight rowing is a special category of rowing
Rowing (sport)
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

 where limits are placed on the maximum weight
Weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force on the object due to gravity. Its magnitude , often denoted by an italic letter W, is the product of the mass m of the object and the magnitude of the local gravitational acceleration g; thus:...

 of competitors. The rationale is that larger, taller people have a small but significant physical advantage and tend to dominate the sport. Having a lightweight category gives average sized individuals the ability to compete against their peers, but rowers who are tall and thin generally have an advantage over those who are shorter but broader.

At international level for crew boats the limits are:
  • Men: Crew average 70 kg (154 lb) - no rower over 72.5 kg (160 lb)
  • Women: Crew average 57 kg (126 lb) - no one over 59 kg (130 lb)


For single sculls the limits are 72.5 kg and 59 kg for men and women respectively.

According to FISA
International Rowing Federation
The Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Aviron, or FISA for short, is the International Rowing Federation which is the governing body for international Rowing. Its current president is Denis Oswald...

, this weight category was introduced "to encourage more universality in the sport especially among nations with less statuesque people".

The first lightweight events were added to the World Championships in 1974 for men and 1985 for women. Lightweight rowing was added to the Olympics in 1996 but this came under threat in 2002 when the Programme Commission of the IOC
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee is an international corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president...

 recommended that, outside combat sports and weightlifting, there should not be weight category events. The Executive Board overturned this recommendation and lightweight rowing continues at the Olympics.
There are three Olympic-class lightweight events: Men's Coxless Fours, Men's Double Sculls and Women's Double Sculls. The World Championships include lightweights' events for all classes of crew, and in Olympic years a reduced World Championship regatta includes all events that are not represented at the Olympics.

Top lightweight crew teams can go faster than other heavyweight teams. For example, at the 2010 Head of the Charles Regatta
Head of the Charles Regatta
The Head of the Charles Regatta, also known as HOCR or HOTC, is a rowing race held on the penultimate complete weekend of October each year on the Charles River, which separates Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The race is named the "Head" of the Charles because it is a head race...

, the winner of the Lightweight Eights Men race (Princeton University) would have placed 5th in the Championship Eights Men race, ahead of Deutscher Ruder Verband (a U-23 German team), Cornell University, University of Wisconsin and Brown University.

United States

At the collegiate level
College rowing (United States)
Rowing is one of the oldest intercollegiate sports in the United States. However, rowers comprise only 2.2% of total college athletes. This may be in part because of the status of rowing as an amateur sport and because not all universities have access to suitable bodies of water. In the 2002-03...

, many larger American Division I schools, unlike their UK counterparts, can field between one and three lightweight boats for both men and women. In recent years the practice of juniors training down to a weight has been questioned as low BMI
Body mass index
The body mass index , or Quetelet index, is a heuristic proxy for human body fat based on an individual's weight and height. BMI does not actually measure the percentage of body fat. It was invented between 1830 and 1850 by the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet during the course of developing...

 has been linked to health and growth problems in adolescents. However, if there were no junior lightweight category the athletes would have to row at college level without special treatment, reducing their chance of top-level coaching or competition.

In both lightweight men's and lightweight women's collegiate rowing, competition at the school-funded 'Varsity' level is small but fiercely competitive; the de facto national championship for both disciplines is the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship
Intercollegiate Rowing Association
The Intercollegiate Rowing Association runs the IRA Championship Regatta, which is considered to be the United States collegiate national championship of rowing. Since 1995, it has been held on the Cooper River in Pennsauken, New Jersey, and includes both men's and women's events for sweep boats...

 held each year on the Cooper River in New Jersey on the weekend after Memorial Day. However, several club rowing programs (e.g., California Lightweight Crew
California Lightweight Crew
California Lightweight Crew is the club rowing team at the University of California, Berkeley. Known as the ‘Cal Lightweights’ or ‘Cal Lights,’ the team is a member of the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association...

), which receive minimal or no school funding, consistently field lightweight crews that compete for equivalent titles at the Dad Vail Regatta
Dad Vail Regatta
The Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta is the largest regular intercollegiate rowing event in the USA, drawing over a hundred colleges and universities from North America. The event has been held annually on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1953. Briefly in late 2009, it was planned...

 on the Schuylkill River
Schuylkill River
The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...

in Philadelphia, and, most recently, at the American Collegiate Rowing Association Championships.

In the U.S. Collegiate category, the following limits apply as of spring 2011:
  • Freshman Men: no rower over 160 lb.
  • Varsity Men: no rower over 160 lb.
  • Varsity Women: no rower over 130 lb.


In the Junior category, the following limits apply as of spring 2011:
  • Men: No rower over 160 lb.
  • Women: No rower over 130 lb.

External links

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