Paris 2024 Olympic Rowing Regatta: The Lightweight Doubles

Lightweight rowing at the Olympics was introduced to encourage universality in the sport – a chance for smaller athletes to compete against those of their own size. Athletes have the added complexity of before any race the crew has to get themselves weighed and must weigh in under a specified amount. For women, the crew average must be 57kg or less and for the men 70kg or less.

Olympic quota places: 16 for each men’s and women’s lightweight double
Total number of athletes: 64
Qualification pathways for men and women:
7 quota places each at the 2023 World Rowing Championships. Women: GBR, USA, ROU, CAN, NZL, CHN, IRL Men: IRL, SUI, ITA, CZE, ESP, NOR, MEX.
2 quota places each at the Asian/Oceanian, Americas and European Qualification regattas, 1 quota place at the African Qualification regatta. Women: TUN, ARG, PER, JPN, IRI, POL, AUT. Men: EGY, CHI, ARG, JPN, UZB, UKR, BEL.

2 quota places each at the 2024 Final Olympic Qualification Regatta. Women: FRA, GRE. Men: FRA, GRE.

Lightweight women’s double sculls

Reigning Olympic Champions: Italy
Reigning World Champions: Great Britain
2024 World Rowing Cup overall winner: Great Britain

The Tokyo Olympic final was undoubtedly one of the best races we’ve ever seen. Five boats sprinted to the line and Great Britain missing out on an Olympic medal by 0.1 seconds. How do you recover from that? Great Britain’s Emily Craig and Imogen Grant have come back by going on a gold medal-winning spree that began at the 2022 European Championships and hasn’t stopped since. They’ve also set a new World Best Time in 2023 with a time of 6:40.

Craig and Grant may be looking unbeatable, but at the Olympics anything can happen and the British duo surely know this after Tokyo. Laura Tarantola and Claire Bove finished with silver in Tokyo and although they’ve had mixed results in the last couple of seasons, they will be racing on familiar waters with the crowd on their side. Bove and Tarantola, however, took the hard road to qualifying having to do it at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in May. Then there’s New Zealand’s Shannon Cox and Jackie Kiddle. The are a relatively new combination but have been steadily improving including a win at World Cup III in June.

Keep an eye out for the United States. Molly Reckford and Michelle Sechser finished fifth at the Tokyo Olympics and have stayed together as a combination to take second at last year’s World Rowing Championships. They only raced once this season internationally taking third at World Cup II.

Lightweight men’s double sculls

Reigning Olympic Champions: Ireland
Reigning World Champions: Ireland
2024 World Rowing Cup overall winner: Italy

In Tokyo, the duo of Fintan McCarthy and Paul O’Donovan won the first-ever Olympic gold medal for Ireland in rowing. This came after O’Donovan finished second in this same event at the Rio Olympics. The O’Donovan flame keeps on glowing he heads to Paris to defend his title. With McCarthy this looks likely. The duo have an enviable sprint and never seem to be troubled by their competition. In their final race, however, before Paris the Irish finished third. At the line Italy’s Stefano Oppo and Gabriel Soares got the gold with Switzerland’s Raphael Ahumada and Jan Schaeuble in silver. The saving grace for Ireland was that the margins were tight. Just over a second separated the top three boats.

These three countries must be eyeing each other when they hit the waters of Paris. They will also need to eye up Hugo Beurey and Ferdinand Ludwig. They won at World Cup III last year just a fraction ahead of Ireland and enough to show they know how to race.

If that isn’t enough, watch out too for Norway and Spain. Both these boats have the speed to be in the A-final. Can they reach the medals?