When rowing ruled in Rio de Janeiro

At these Olympics there are two Brazilian rowing crews and overall the sport is still developing in the nation. Despite these relatively low numbers of Brazilian competitors, there is a Brazilian rowing history that stretches back over 100 years. In 1851 the first boat duel was recorded on Rio’s Botafogo Bay. It was between longboats and whaleboats.

 By the end of the 19th century, rowing was the most important sport in Rio de Janeiro. A Brazilian rowing body was established and the first Brazilian Rowing Championships took place in 1900.

Rowing today is concentrated in three main areas – Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre – with the rowing clubs all connected to football clubs. On the shores of the Olympic Rowing Regatta course are three clubs all now better known as football clubs – Flamengo, Vasco de Gama and Botafoga.

Flamengo began as a rowing club. Their rowing coach Leonardo da Cunha describes, “After rowing, all the other sports came to the club. Even in the statutes it actually says that we can get rid of any other sport, even football, but they can’t get rid of rowing because it is the founding sport.”

When rowing was at its peak, says da Cunha, “The first sport of the day was rowing. Everyone would come to the Lagoa and then in the afternoon go to the stadium to watch football. I’ve seen pictures with thousands and thousands of people here at the Lagoa to watch rowing.” Now, says da Cunha the football part of the club knows virtually nothing about rowing.

Da Cunha coaches Flamengo’s 30 junior rowers who train nine times per week. 

Rio Club Botafoga has a history going back 120 years, beginning by rowing on the Bay. “It was founded by four young guys who were rowing in a wide boat,” says Botafoga coach Paulo Vinicius de Souza. “When they got up early to row, there was a star in the sky at 5am when they were on the water. It is our logo, this star.

“There were two different Botafoga’s, one for football and one for rowing. There was an accident and one guy died. They decided to come together and to be a rowing and football club from that day.”

Around 1930 Botafoga moved from the Bay to Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon. At that stage rowing was so popular that there were two divisions of clubs. ” In the second division you could find up to 100 clubs,” says de Souza. “It was huge in Rio. You could find maybe 100,000 people watching the racing. But today we have only three main clubs and a few smaller ones.”

The club Vasco da Gama was established as a rowing club at the turn of the century when rowing was in its heyday.  Football was then included in 1915 when the club joined with Lusitania Clube. Today the club also includes basketball and other sports.  Vasco rower Hygor Rayne da Vitoria rowed in Espirito Santo and was invited by Vasco to row there. He came to Rio in 2015 and competed in the World Rowing Junior Championships that acted as a test event for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games rowing regatta.

” Rio is a marvellous town and to train and live here at the Lagoa is just beautiful,” says Rayne da Vitoria who says the rowers and football players keep very separate from each other.

The three clubs have a strong rivalry between them. ” We are friends actually, but on the water it is really tough,” says da Cunha. Words which are reiterated by Vasco and Botafoga.