When women first rowed at the Olympics

"What year was that?", you may ask. Was it back in 1948 when women first competed in canoe racing over 500m? No. Maybe in the 1960s then – after all, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963? Wrong again.

Astoundingly, it was only in 1976, at the same time as the incredible gymnast Nadia Comaneci was achieving levels of perfection that had hitherto been thought impossible (and awakening my interest in the Olympics on a black and white TV), that women rowers took part in the Olympics for the first time. And they didn't even get to race the full distance.

Harder or easier? Racing then and now

The strapline for this blog is "going beyond regattas and head races", so what is a post about racing doing here? Well, it's got in on a wild card because it takes a peek at the quite incredible "expedition" that rowing, and in particular women's rowing, has been on since the 1950s when entries in the Women's Eights Head of the River Race were frequently in single figures.

Since then, boats, blades, kit, training, standards and the size of events have been transformed. But have the young racers of today really "never had it so good"? Or does the very popularity of women's rowing nowadays, which makes it harder to win, mean that "the good old days" were actually better?