1. Rowing is one of the original sports in the modern Olympic Games.
2. There are two forms of rowing; sweep and sculling.
3. The first national governing body for a sport in the United States was for rowing.
4. Rowing dates back to Egyptian times.
5. As a competitive sport, its origins date back to the early 1700s, when races were held on the River Thames in London, England.
6. The first amateur sport organisation was a rowing club - Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Navy, founded in 1858.
7. The most difficult and most important seat in the boat is the stroke.
8. In competitive rowing there are usually two weight classes, lightweight and heavyweight.
9. The usual distance for a race is 2000 metres, although some high school sprints are only 1500 metres.
10. If a rower loses control of his or her oar, the oar will act as a brake. This is referred to as catching a crab.
11. The boats are made of fiberglass composite material.
An eight, which carries more than three-quarters of a ton (1,750 pounds), may weigh as little as 200 pounds.
12. Singles may be as narrow as 10 inches across, weigh only 23 pounds, and stretch nearly 27-feet long.
13. Rowing is the only Olympic team sport to be included in every modern summer Games, except one due to bad weather.
14. Though rowing looks like an upper-body sport, it’s actually the rower’s legs that provide power to the oar.
15. The world's largest annual regatta is Head of the Charles.
16. The middle seats are usually reserved for the strongest and largest rowers in the boat to improve the boat's balance.
17. The coxswain is the in-the-boat coach responsible for carrying out the training or race plan.
18. He or she is also responsible for motivating the rowers and calling out information.
19. Coxswain are usually petite individuals.
20. For 36 years, from 1920 until 1956, the United States won the gold medal in men's rowing in the Olympics.
21. Yale College founded the first collegiate boat club in the U.S. in 1843.
22. Physiologists claim that rowing a 2,000-metre race is equal to playing back-to-back basketball games.
23. And rowers are generally in superb physical condition.
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All facts via Softschools and TeamUSA.