Fort Worth Do The Olympics: Rowing

There are five different rowing events for the women at the Olympics: single sculls, double sculls, quad sculls, coxless pairs and eights. Sculling is when the athlete uses two oars, whereas in the pairs and eights, each athlete only has one oar. All races are over a 2000m course.

We met bright and early on a Saturday morning at the Trinity River boathouse to work with two coaches from the Fort Worth Rowing Club. We had reviewed some paperwork and videos ahead of time to give us an idea of the motion used for sculling. We all did some work on the ergs first - a rowing machine that allows you to practice the motion. It's quite an exact science to get the hang of in order to optimize your stroke. A huge amount of the stroke is all in the legs, with the waist and arms following. It should actually be rather relaxing once you really get it. You start with legs bent and seat slid all of the way forward, leaning forward with hands/oars near your feet. First, you push strongly with legs, staying bent forward at the waist. At the end of the leg push, you continue the motion by leaning back, then bending elbows and bringing your hands to your chest. Then you do it all in reverse. The lean, both forward and back, should only be about 20 degrees either way.

We headed out with our solo boats to try it on the water. Sitting up high, rather than in the boat is a bit disconcerting at first, but once we started rowing, we forgot about that part. It takes a while to get in a rhythm, but once you do, you can take a moment to see how it really propels you. The harder part for me was getting the hand motion right - to make sure the oars were in the water at the right angle. More than once, I would pull but not go anywhere because I had the oars feathered and gliding through the water instead of square and pulling.

L2 heading out to do solo sculls

After solos, some of us were able to go out in the quad boat on Sunday. A nice round trip down the river and back.

Some of us still have the quad to finish, and we all have the doubles and eights to do. Our coaches explained that doubles is extremely difficult, so we should focus on the other events first. Hopefully by the time we finish the other events, we'll be confident enough to get into the doubles boats!