row2k Features
Olympic Rowing Technique - A Closer Look, Part II
September 27, 2016
Charlotte Hollings, Calm Waters Rowing

GB Men's 8

In order to highlight more races, we continue this month with a Part II of Olympic Rowing Technique - A Closer Look; see Part I here.

This year there seemed to be few surprises, as most of the favorites won, from the Great Britain Men’s 8 to the Australian Women’s 1x. On their way to becoming favorites, techniques were established and honed and these techniques helped carry them through to Olympic Gold.

The photo at the top of the feature of the Great Britain Men's 8 at the beginning of the drive shows rounded backs and loose elbows. Keeping the elbows low and not locked allows them to connect to their lat muscles. If the elbows are locked, hands get high and then instead of the lats taking the load, the traps are engaged. High hands will also cause the blades to go deep. Note too the minimal amount of splash, yet the blades are almost fully buried. These amazingly strong athletes manage to make it look like they’re hardly working. I often compare it to ballet. It takes a lot of power and yet control and fluidity as well.

Here we see the Dutch Lightweight Women’s 2x at the beginning of the drive. It’s sculling and not sweep, but otherwise the position is not that dissimilar from the GBR 8 - rounded backs, loose elbows, hands low. I particularly like the small “v” splash the stroke has - a little back splash and a little front splash, but not much splash either direction. The grip is out on the fingers, not up into the hand, with the wrists flat.

The New Zealand Men’s 2- continued their dominance. Here they are shown mid-drive, with the outside arm stretched out and around to the oar while the inside elbow is relaxed and slightly bent. You can see the suspension of the body from the oar.

Here they’re at the release in a nice, long layback position. The top edge of the blade has come out of the water square and now the blade is just beginning to feather so that the bottom edge will feather out and over the water.

Kim Brennan (Photo #5) from Australia held off Gevvie Stone of the US to take the gold in the Women’s 1x. Her legs are fully extended but the arms have not yet begun to pull, allowing her to suspend her weight from the oars as long as possible. The hands are perfectly nested with the left slightly higher and to the stern of the right hand. The shoulders are down and the head is steady.

Although this final photo is not of a medalist, it shows what I look for at the finish from a different perspective. This is Aisha Chow, who represented Trinidad and Tobago at the Olympics, but lives in CA and trains at the Bair Island Aquatic Club. She has won the Master’s 1x at the Head of the Charles several times. Her elbows are out, with the forearms parallel to the water and the elbows in line with the wrists. The wrists are still flat, meaning she has yet to feather the oar and so has continued the drive all the way until this point. The grip is out on the fingers, not up into the hand - no death grip despite racing at full tilt.

I hope these images will help you visualize your own powerful but smooth strokes. Get someone to take photos or video of you so you can see if you’re doing what you think you’re doing. Good luck!

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