MAIN Recreation Sports Rowing

The ancient Egyptians rowed down the Nile for generations. Later, the ancient Chinese took to dragon boat racing.

Indeed, for millennia rowing has served as a basic necessity for fishing, trade and transportation, as a recreational pursuit, or as an excuse for popular competitions among professional oarsmen.

Today, although rules of competition may vary by country, major rowing competitions feature standard-size boats and teams in competition made up of either 1, 2, 4, or 8 rowers.

The two main types of competitions are either sweep or sculling. The primary difference between the two is the number of oars used. For example, in sweep oar competitions each rower as one oar held with both hands. In sculling, each rower has two oars, one in each hand.

Although basically similar in execution, rowing competitions are nothing like canoeing or kayaking. As any world competitor will tell you, sculling or sweeping takes incredible core strength and endurance, as well as timing and coordination with up to 10 teammates. A male dominated sport for centuries, it wasn't until the 1976 Summer Olympics when women were allowed to participate in Olympic rowing.

Around the Web, discover swift, easy to handle and action-packed guides to rowing offering how to's for beginners, rules of competition, news, results, training info, photos and fun facts ....

More about rowing around the Web:

The Rowing Service - Another comprehensive resource searchable by category and including news and team results, history, message boards, contacts, lists of national federations, and check out rowing miscellany for a great cache of rowing humor and trivia.

World Rowing - Like it says, from the official site featuring news and events from around the world, athlete profiles, official rules, a cool photo gallery (Flash required) together with downloadable training manuals, online shop and related links and resources.

RowingLinks.com - Searchable via a neat interactive map keyword or divided into world regions, with recommended reading and a Most Popular Sites guide.

iRow.com - News, news and more news along with the latest results, a calendar of events, photo gallery and a huge collection of college, high school, international and rowing club links and resources.

FAQ: Physics of Rowing - Sports science run rampant at this expert guide to the physics of rowing taking into consideration weight, stream/depth and ergometers, and including bibliography and references.

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