In the year following on the Olympics, it is customary for FISA to review its priorities and take stock of new plans for the future.  Some crazy ideas come out of this brainstorming.  Some of them are worthwhile; some of them are not.  Just where is our sport going?  Here's what I have heard.

Disabled Rowing

FISA is always looking for ways to expand the sport to potential participants who have not had the chance to row before, and that is a good thing.  One proposal I have heard is the creation of a world championships for disabled rowing.  This is a fantastic idea.

Disabled rowing is a quickly growing area of our sport which does not receive due recognition.  There are some fantastic disabled rowing programs which have sprung up in many countries - I am most aware of the one in Philadelphia, personally, but I know they are out there.  The good work done here should get its FISA sanction and recognition.  Furthermore, with FISA recognition would come the possibility of adding rowing events to the Paralympics.  I think this sort of thing can only enhance our sport without detracting in the least from any other area.

Boat Classes

Word has it that FISA is considering cutting back on the number of events at its regattas.  It claims that the non-Olympic boat classes are under-subscribed and therefore not worth holding.  This is just dumb and self-fulfilling.

First of all, this is a post-Olympic year.  That means that national team athletes have less concern about the event they find themselves in.  So to cut back on non-Olympic events at this point reduces the possibilities for necessary development.

Second, I have not yet heard talk of further reducing the World Championship schedule.  So to cut back on events at regattas leading up to the World Championships reduces the possibilities for crews to race before hand.  That is not a good way to up the standard of rowing.

Third, cutting down on events also cuts down on necessary seats - especially in the lightweight boat classes.  I have already written at length over two years ago about my concerns regarding FISA undermining women’s lightweight rowing.  I fear that these subsequent cuts might finish off the job and hurt potential growth of men’s lightweight rowing as well.  Gone, for example, would be the men’s eight and both men’s and women’s singles.  Gone also would be the men’s quad (in which Japan took its first-ever Gold this past year).  We should be adding, not subtracting, possibilities, especially in a post-Olympic year.

Maybe the problem is that FISA picked the wrong events to be Olympic events.  I have gone on record as for my choice: 8+, 2-, 4X, and 1X in all four categories (with the asterisk on the women’s lightweight eight, which would need to be phased in over a period of several years until the caliber is as high as it needs to be as an Olympic event).

Erg Competitions

There is talk that FISA wants to get into the running of indoor regattas now. This was prompted both by the recognition that these are big events in the rowing world and that there are lots of non-rowers who erg and even compete successfully on the erg.  I think it is one of those things: sounds cool in theory, but someone should actually stop to think first.

The erg is a training tool, nothing else.  Just because some non-rowers erg in gyms does not make them rowers, and as a sport we should not be catering to them.  We should certainly not come across as exclusive and snotty, but open and willing to welcome them into the fold.  If we do that, we can attract some of these non-rower ergers into the fold.  If they are not interested in rowing for real, then we should not really cater to them.

If FISA sponsors erg competitions, it will be hurting its water competitions.  First of all, it will be diverting resources.  Second of all, ergs don’t float.

Although Rob Waddell has been the fastest erger and sculler in the world the last few years, and most of the faster rowers are fast ergers, there is a difference in training.  It is, of course, possible to train for erg competitions - to peak in Cambridge, Mass., at the CRASH-B Sprints (World Indoor Championship) every February.  But such training does not necessarily result in putting out the fastest crews come the racing season.  Take a step down from elite, and I do not notice the same corollary between results at CRASH-Bs (or regional competitions) and results in the Spring racing season for collegiate crews, for example.

I would fear that if FISA takes over CRASH-Bs (or some alternative) that it would serve to over-emphasize the erg as an event in its own right and not as a training tool.

Also, if FISA does get involved with indoor rowing, it would have to pick a machine.  Right now, the standard is set by Concept II.  FISA could either accept that machine or choose another.  But for results to be meaningful it would have to pick some specific machine.  This is in contrast to on-the-water rowing, where FISA, although providing design limits on boats, does not mandate identical boats.  At an erg competition, it would be no good if every competitor showed up with his erg manufacturer of choice.  Do we really want FISA to standardize on a single corporate manufacturer with a patent?

One of the reasons I have heard that FISA is considering erg competitions is that they are somehow “more exciting” for the general public.  Somehow I do not see that.  While I admit that the general public might find watching a 2K race on the water a bit dull, I fail to see how erging will go over any better.  Who really wants to watch a bunch of people sitting in one place and going no where?  Sure, they can project onto a screen the computer “meters” traveled.  But wouldn’t it be more exciting to see them in boats and watch the real meters traveled?  Sounds like a non-starter, to me.  At least I hope so.

Supersprints

This is not a FISA idea, to be sure.  But it does come from the same theory that something must be done to make our sport more viewer-friendly.  This is an idea championed by Steve Redgrave.

I must admit I am not entirely clear on the concept of this one.  I have seen the description of the races run the last few years which are essentially relay races with different boat classes - sort of like a medley relay in swimming - run over very short courses (“sprint” courses in British parlance, “dash” courses in American parlance - a “sprint” in America is a 2K, the term there developing when standard competitive distances were often 3+ miles and the 2K was the sprint course in comparison).

I gather these can be exciting for neophytes, but I do not see the excitement for everyone else.  With a dash course, strategy goes out the window.  There is muttering in the general public that a 2K race is not exciting because much of the course is spent with the margins getting bigger and not much change of lead (although those critics should be shown the 2000 Olympics) - but in a dash there is no time for a lead change at all.  Whoever gets out ahead faster is more likely to win.  I suppose the excitement for the neophytes is that it is over sooner.

I have not seen these races, I might add.  Real rowers who have tell me they are exciting somehow.

The one thing I am most unclear about, though, is where this is all going.  I have seen interviews with Redgrave which say he envisions making the format more like Formula One racing.  Now there’s a road I wouldn’t care to go down (no pun intended).  Motor sports are one of the most boring spectacles on television (ranking right up there with golf).  I have no idea why motor sports and golf dominate the sports airwaves.  I suppose if making rowing into Formula One will produce viewers, it will produce money, and will produce benefits for the sport.  I just don’t see how that could happen.  And turning the Supersprints into Formula One would take the sprint out, wouldn’t it?  And how hard and expensive would it be to build suitable rowing tracks - wide enough so the boats don’t plow into each other as they round the bends (or is it the crashes that would be the attractive spectacle for the viewing audience).  Sounds like we could be heading to televised international bumps racing (at which point I will make a hasty exit).
 

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