BY CHIP DAVIS | PHOTO BY LISA WORTHY
The 2023 Best Of series features the athletes, events, and moments that mattered in the year in rowing.
Event of the Year: World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals
This fall’s announcement by the International Olympic Committee that Beach Sprint Rowing would be included in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games seemed like it came out of nowhere for anyone involved in rowing less than full-time.
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But the hard work of taking this “exciting and compelling discipline, not just for the participants but also for spectators on the land”—the vision of Matt Smith, former executive director of FISA (now World Rowing)—has been going on since 2011, when British Olympic medalist Guin Batten tackled the challenge as chair of the “Rowing for All” commission.
The electric, joyous atmosphere of this year’s World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals showcased what Smith, Batten, and the IOC have been imagining for our sport for more than a decade. With the success of the event—an exuberant form of Coastal Rowing that involves sprinting across the beach, hopping in a coastal rowing shell and sculling 250 meters through the breaking surf around a buoy and back to the beach, and sprinting and diving for the finish before your side-by-side challenger—World Rowing earned the IOC’s blessing.
