2020 World Rowing Coastal Championships heads to Portugal

This sees the Coastal Championships returning to Europe for the first time in three years and also sees it combined with the Beach Sprint Finals for the first time with rowers able to participate in both events.

The event will take place at Praia da Torre a popular swimming beach on the Lisbon coastline in the town of Oeiras.

The exact competition dates are yet to be set but the two events will span the last weekend of September and the first weekend of October in 2020 when the weather sits around 20 degrees Celsius and the water temperature is about 18 degrees Celsius.

The FISA Council attributed the event to the Portuguese Rowing Federation and Oeiras, a municipality in the western part of the Lisbon metropolitan area. The event agreement was signed by the president of the Portuguese Rowing Federation, Luis Ahrens Teixeira and will also be signed by the Mayor of Oeiras.

“We are extremly honoured to host this event during centenary of Portuguese Rowing Federation,” says Ahrens. “We look forward to welcoming all rowers and hope to provide a fun event where we share the values of our sport and have great competition.”

Coastal rowing has been developing in Portugal with the support of the Portuguese Rowing Federation’s coastal rowing programme. The federation currently hosts five coastal events annually.

The World Rowing Coastal Championships are open to club crews from any nation. There is no limit to the number of entries. The Coastal Championships are held annually, usually in October and are raced over a distance of usually 4000m for heats and 6000m for finals. Buoyed turns are a feature of racing. There are seven boat classes for men and women; single scull (or ‘solo’), double sculls, coxed quadruple sculls and mixed double scull. In 2019 the Coastal Championships will take place in Hong Kong.  

The World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals will run for the first time in 2019. The inaugural event is due to take place in late October with Shenzhen, China playing host. This event is open to one entry per National Rowing Federation per boat class. The boat classed include men’s and women’s solo, mixed double sculls and mixed coxed quadruple sculls.

Location here.
Beach images here.