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.

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The played host this year to the World Rowing Coastal Championships, with over 500 athletes from 29 countries and regions competing in the regatta. A total of 22 boats from British clubs made the journey to test out their skills against the rest of the world.

GB crews performed well, though finished out of the medals, with eight qualifying for A finals including a total of four crews in the men’s coxed quadruple sculls.

A highlight of the Championships came when the women’s singles title was won by Diana Dymchenko of Concord, Ukraine for the third year in a row. She later went on to partner with Yuriy Ivanov in the mixed double sculls to repeat Concord’s gold medal success.

In the men’s singles, there was disappointment for Great Britain’s Eduardo Linares Ruiz, representing , who was unfortunately not able to replicate his gold medal performance from 2018, finishing fifth this time around.

Instead, it was Spanish rower Adrian Miramon Quiroga who went on from his singles win at the World Rowing Beach Sprints Finals the previous weekend to repeat his victory in the same boat class.

The women’s coxed quadruple sculls event had opened the A finals, and was the centre of a lot of controversy. The Spanish crew from Alicante, who led for the entirety of the race, incurred a time penalty of 2 minutes for crossing the start line too early, allowing the Hong Kong China rowing team to take victory on the line on home water. The sole GB representative was a UL Tyrian crew who finished eighth out of the 16 finalists.

It’s very exciting for a cox. The bends, hairpin turns – it’s just really good fun

It was an all-Italian affair in the men’s coxed quadruple sculls with crews from Italy securing both gold and silver medals. British interest was well represented with three UL Tyrian crews racing, finishing in fifth, ninth and 16th while a crew from came 17th.

The men’s double sculls title was awarded to Spain’s Torrevieja following yet more time penalties awarded by the umpires, proving that staying out of collisions around the 6km course pays dividends.

Russia was the dominant force in the women’s double sculls, leading the field from the starting buzzer to take gold across the line followed by crews from France and Hong Kong.  Two GB crews made the A final cut with a Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club / composite finishing ninth while / came in 15th.

A notable mention to ’ Bryony Jones, who won the women’s singles B final in style by beating fellow British competitor Jenny Glass of to secure 17th and 18th, respectively.

The course proved to be a challenge, and Louise Cox of UL Tyrian’s women’s coxed  quad relished the choppy waters.

She said: “It’s very exciting for a cox. The bends, hairpin turns – it’s just really good fun. We don’t have a lot of experience in coastal rowing, but there are so many more factors to take in while racing.”

The competition was set to an iconic backdrop, Tim Fenemore racing for said: “When you see the videos and the pictures afterwards, you get a sense of the scale of the venue, and the backdrop is just amazing.”

It was the first time at the Championships for many British athletes, including Honor Bailey of . “I only started coastal rowing a few months ago, and Fishguard have been really supportive in my transfer from river rowing to the rougher conditions. I’m hooked!”

World Rowing praised the success of the Championships. Cameron Allen, FISA Event Manager, said: “The local organising committee in Hong Kong were exceptional to work with, and we owe the huge success of the event to them.”

Next year, the World Rowing Coastal Championships will be held at Oeiras, Portugal.

For more information visit .

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