Coastal rowing to be included in 2022 Youth Olympic Games

The International Olympic Committee has announced that coastal rowing will feature at the 2022 Youth Olympic Games to be held in Dakar, Senegal

Racing will be held in the form of Beach Sprints, taking place just south of Dakar on the picturesque Saly Beach. Categories featured will include coastal junior men’s and women’s solos, junior men’s and women’s doubles and the junior mixed double sculls and will be open to athletes worldwide born in 2004 and 2005.

Christophe De Kepper, Director General of the IOC, reflected on the fit coastal rowing has within the new event programme key principles: “The objective of these principles is to assist in providing a sustainable model for hosting and organising the Youth Olympic Games, and to ensure alignment with youth development pathways, overall gender equality, innovation and understandability and credibility of the events.”

FISA President Jean-Christophe Rolland said: “This is fantastic news that the IOC has agreed that coastal rowing will be included in the Dakar 2022 Youth Olympic Games. Coastal rowing is critical to our strategy to expand the sport to new and diverse countries, many that do not have suitable rivers and lakes. The exciting nature of coastal rowing will also fit perfectly in with the style and brand of the Youth Olympic Games.”

Notably, this will be the first Youth Olympic Games with full gender parity, not only in an equal number of male and female athletes, but also equal representation in each sport. Coastal rowing itself will welcome a quota of 120 athletes – 60 men and 60 women.

The World Rowing Federation, FISA, will announce more details in early February 2020 on the strategy to address this huge opportunity for the development of Coastal Rowing. The FISA Council will be proposing a qualification system including qualification at the 2021 World Rowing Coastal Championships and a wide number of continental qualification camps and regattas.