Rowing

The 14 events

Men (four sculling and four sweeping events)

The four sculling boats: Skiff, coxless pairs, lightweight double sculls without coxswain and coxless fours. The four sweeping boats: Coxless pairs, coxless fours, lightweight coxless fours and eights (only boat with coxswain).

Women (four sculling and two sweeping events)

The four sculling boats: Skiff, coxless pairs, lightweight coxless pairs and coxless fours. The two sweeping boats: Coxless pairs and eights (only boat with coxswain).

The format

Qualifying rounds, repechages, quarter-finals for events with more than 24 boats, semi-finals and final (6 boats for each race, in qualifying this may vary due to the number of competitors)

Milestones

1715: Creation of the "Doggett's Coat and Badge Race", conceived by Thomas Doggett.

1829: First 'eights' match between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

1896: Though part of the Olympic programme, the rowing events were cancelled because of bad weather.

1900: Official appearance of rowing in the Olympic programme.

1976: Women are admitted into the Olympic rowing events.

1996: Lightweight boats and new disciplines are introduced for both men and women at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Stars

Pertti Karppinen (Finland): The king of skiff. Three Olympic gold medals at consecutive Games (1976, 1980, 1984), plus two world titles. A specialist of late comebacks.

Steven Redgrave (Great Britain): The greatest ever. Five gold medals at five consecutive Games between Los Angeles 1984 and Sydney 2000. 9 world titles, in pairs and in coxless fours.

Agostino, Carmine and Giuseppe Abbagnale (Italy): A unique saga. Six Olympic medals (five gold and one silver) in five different Olympiads between 1984 and 2000 for these celebrated brothers. They also won 16 world titles.