Rowing Preview

USRowing will be sending 37 athletes to Sea Forest Waterway to compete in nine events (seven for women and two for men) at this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo. 

The U.S. qualified eight of 14 Olympic boats at the 2019 World Rowing Championships, and secured its final Olympic boat in May at the 2021 FISA Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland.

In 2019, the U.S. won six medals at the world championships. In the Olympic-boat categories, the U.S. won bronze in the women’s eight and women’s single sculls, while reaching the A Final in the women’s double sculls, women’s pair, women’s four, men’s four and men’s eight. The women’s quadruple sculls boat won the B Final to secure a top-eight finish and Olympic qualification. The lightweight women’s double sculls boat earned its place with a win in the Final Qualification Regatta.

At the Olympic Games Rio 2016, the U.S. sent 41 rowers and secured two medals, with the women’s eight winning gold and Gevvie Stone winning silver in the women's single sculls.

Updated on June 11, 2021. For more information, contact the sport press officer here.

•  The U.S. women’s eight has won gold at three consecutive Olympic Games and won a gold medal at either the world championships or Olympic Games in 12 of the last 14 years. After failing to medal at the world championships in 2017, the U.S. was back on top of the medal stand in 2018 and looks to continue this success at Tokyo 2020.

 

•  No other country qualified the maximum of seven women’s boats for the Tokyo Games, so it is no surprise the U.S. women’s national team is expected to be especially competitive in Japan. Women’s boats reached the finals in five Olympic-class boats at the 2019 World Rowing Championships, earning bronze medals in the women’s eight and single sculls.

 

•  Tokyo represents Mike Teti’s return to the Olympic Games as men’s head coach after spending 10 years in the same position at the University of California, Berkeley. Before heading to UC Berkeley, Teti served as USRowing’s men’s head coach from 1997-2008. He coached the U.S. men’s eight to nine world championship medals during that time period, including four golds in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2005. At the Olympic Games Athens 2004, he directed the men’s eight team to a world record in its heat and an eventual gold medal, marking the first time the U.S. captured the men’s eight title since 1964. He followed that up in 2008, helping coach the team to bronze in Beijing 2008. Teti has the men’s eight primed to get back on the medal stand in Tokyo.

 

•  The men's under-23 national team program had several medal-winning performances at the 2018 and 2019 World Rowing U23 Championships, and the senior national team could soon see the fruits of that success. With the addition of several athletes from those boats, the talent pool and medal pool for Tokyo has expande

•  2016 Olympian Austin Hack has returned for a shot at a medal after finishing fourth in the men’s eight at Rio 2016. Hack, 29, joins a strong, ever-developing group of athletes at the men’s training center that is looking to return to the medal stand in Tokyo 2020.

 

•  Kara Kohler, 30, reached the medal stand at the world championships in only her second year as a single sculler in 2019, winning bronze. Kohler, a 2012 Olympian in the women’s quadruple sculls, topped Gevvie Stone, the defending Olympic silver medalist, in this year’s U.S. single sculls trials to earn her spot for Tokyo.

 

•  A 2016 Olympic silver medalist in the single sculls, Gevvie Stone took two years off from international competition and returned to the national team in 2019 as Dr. Gevvie Stone. She's now racing in the women’s double sculls. Stone, 36 as of July 11, earned her medical degree from Tufts University in between Olympic Games in 2014.


•  A two-time Olympic gold medalist in women’s eight, Meghan Musnicki returned in 2019 after a two-year hiatus following the 2016 Olympic Games. Musnicki, 38, brings a wealth of experience to the women’s team, which has a strong mixture of returning Olympians and newcomers.


•  Alex Miklasevich (24 on July 17) and Liam Corrigan (23), teammates on men’s eight, have been staples on the U23 national team the past few years and are poised to make an impact at the senior level as the Tokyo Games approach.

• July 23, 2021: Heats begin as Olympic rowing gets underway

• July 27, 2021: The first finals take place and continue through July 30