Rowing at the Summer Olympics

Rowing has been part of the Summer Olympics since its debut in the 1900 Games. Rowing was on the program at the 1896 Summer Olympics but was cancelled due to bad weather. Only men were allowed to compete until the women's events were introduced at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal which gave national federations the incentive to support women's events and catalysed growth in women's rowing. Lightweight rowing events (which have weight-limited crews) were introduced to the games in 1996. Qualifying for the rowing events is under the jurisdiction of the World Rowing Federation. World Rowing predates the modern Olympics and was the first international sport federation to join the modern Olympic movement.
At the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, the following 14 events were contested for both men and women: Single sculls, Double sculls, Quadruple sculls, lightweight double sculls, Coxless pair, Coxless four, Eight.
The lightweight events were first threatened in 2002 when the Programme Commission of the IOC recommended that, outside combat sports (boxing and wrestling, but not fencing, shooting, and archery) and weightlifting, there should not be weight-category events. The 2024 Olympics were the last where lightweight rowing will be included.
Other non-Olympic boatclasses, which still compete in World Championships, are currently: men's & women's lightweight single sculls, lightweight quadruple sculls and lightweight coxless pair.
From 1912 to 2024, all men's races have been over a 2000m course, except for London 1948, where the course was 1850m. In 2024, World Rowing announced that Rowing at the 2028 Olympics will take place over 1500 meters due to limitations of the Long Beach Marine Stadium. This would be shortest ever used for men's Olympic rowing.
Before 1912, it was raced over various distances: the course in Paris in 1900 was 1750m, in St. Louis in 1904 it was 3218m, and in London in 1908 it was 2414m. The 1908 and 1948 events were held over the Henley Royal Regatta course.
Women's races were raced over 1000m until 1988, when they were changed to 2000m.
Early Games featured match races between two or three boats, until the modern six boat side-by-side format was first adopted at the 1936 Olympic Games. With the exception of the 1952 Olympic Games (races between four or five boats), it has been the standard since.
There is a limited number of crews permitted to race, so World Rowing holds qualification events in order to determine who competes at the Olympic Games. At the Olympic Games, each National Olympic Committee can only have one boat per event.
The main qualification comes from the previous year's World Rowing Championships. Other qualifying events are called "Continental Qualification Regattas", of which four are held during the year preceding the games - Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Final (open to everyone else). Each year FISA issues details of how many crews qualify at each regatta.
At the World Championships, the top finishing boats guarantee a place for that country - the rowers in the crew can be changed before the games. At the qualification regattas, it is the crew that wins that qualifies for the Olympics, and if members of that crew race in the Olympics they must race in that event.
The numbers below are after the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
The table shows those who have won at least 3 gold medals.
Number of rowers from each nation by year of Olympics, starting with 1896 (when none competed due to bad weather) then 1900 through 2020.