Rowing through 2005

Gifu gets ready for the World Rowing Champs

There was no slowing down in the post-Olympic year of rowing as the focus turned to Asia and Beijing 2008. Great Britain took a running start with results to match. Italy aimed for a fresh start by spring cleaning their coaching staff. Germany started off well at the junior level, but their seniors struggled and Australia started to rebuild.

World Rowing looks back at the rowing scene in 2005:

The year began with Dubai defying the odds of sand, new surroundings and extreme heat to get into rowing using the energy of the expat community and the Dubai Creek. Meanwhile Frenchwoman Maud Fontenoy surrounded herself with water when she set off in January to row the Pacific Ocean solo. Seventy-two days later she succeeds.

Rowing in Palestine continued to face hiccups with the coaches stranded outside of the country for over a month and the use of boats still not approved. This left Palestinian-American Mark Gerban to fly the flag as the first Palestinian ever to race at the World Rowing Championships.

The folks at FISA and Federation top dogs from around the world got together in February for a bit of a to-do in Dubrovnik, Croatia at the extraordinary congress and decided to let the men's lightweight eight continue as a World Championship event. The Under 23 Regatta upped its status to championship level. Rules to make sure submerged boats float appeared and the lightweight averaging rule remained.

The FISA Team Cup in February in Spain broke the winter training regime and saw the newly blossoming Chinese perform. The 151st Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race heated up into an international affair in April as students from overseas added to the fight for a spot in the crew. Oxford went on to win.

Australia's most successful rower, James Tomkins declared his intentions to go for Olympics number six and gold medal number four as a healthy 43 years old in Beijing. Adaptive rowing will also be at Beijing with its approval to be part of the Paralympic Games.

The three World Cups saw the expansion of the charity race. Eton, Great Britain opened with the Sydney Olympic men's four finalists re-enacting their race. This time Slovenia won. Then in Munich the women's eight from Germany and the United States went head to head. Lucerne followed it up with two specially designed 12-person boats filled with rowing legends like Silken Laumann and Tim Foster. Germany once again retained the overall trophy for the World Cup but then performed sub-par at the World Rowing Championships.

Cracknell preparing for the Atlantic with partner Ben Fogle

Great Britain's Matthew Pinsent remained in the limelight despite retirement receiving the Thomas Keller medal for 2005. His rowing partner James Cracknell, meanwhile, took the year off from competitive rowing but ended up spending 12 hours a day rowing across the Atlantic Ocean against Irish Olympian Gearoid Towey amongst others.

Sculling goddess Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus won everything she entered in the single through the World Cup and World Championship season and then went on to dominated Europe's autumn long distance races. The four-time Olympian explained, "To win so often means practicing a lot. Not winning motivates me to practice even more.?

The first ever Under 23 champions were crowned in July and Rowing Australia's High Performance Director, Noel Donaldson noted, ?Without question the status of this regatta in its inaugural year as a World Championship event has seen the standard of competition rise to an unprecedented level.?

Focus then shifted in August to the best junior rowers in the world and Germany not only hosts the event, but reigned supreme with medals in 12 of the 13 events.

The World Rowing Championships premiered in Asia when Gifu, Japan hosted the event that opened with typhoon warnings and closed under the might of smaller nations: Slovenia showed the power of their two stars, Iztok Cop and Luka Spik and New Zealand went home with an unprecedented four gold medals. The secret? "It is no sudden success,? said men's pair winner Nathan Twaddle. ?It has been building up for a long time."

The turn towards Asia and the lead up to Beijing 2008 brought Chinese rowing into focus with the country recruiting foreign coaches and vowing to win Olympic medals. They got off to a roaring start by pushing the World Best times at their national games in October.

Pinsent and Redgrave swinging in the public eye

The year finished with rowing hitting reality TV under the guidance of Sir Steve Redgrave while the second World Rowing Forum looked to the future and pondered how to make the sport more attractive to the wider world. France's Sophie Balmary become the fastest woman in the world on the indoor rowing machine in December and Cracknell and Towey are still rowing away somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.