Rowing at the 1936 Olympic Games

Rowing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is best remembered for the United States eight, whose win from behind has become one of the best-known stories in the sport’s history.

Setting

The regatta was held on the Langer See at Grünau, in the south-east of Berlin. The Games were organised by Nazi Germany, and the regime used them for propaganda.

Rowing took place from 11 to 14 August 1936.

The events

Seven events were held: single sculls, double sculls, coxless pair, coxed pair, coxless four, coxed four and eight. All were for men, since women’s rowing did not enter the Games until 1976.

Several of those boats no longer appear at the Olympics. The coxed pair and coxed four were dropped later, leaving the eight as the only Olympic boat with a cox. Read more in what Olympic rowing boats are called.

The US eight

The University of Washington crew won the eights gold, a result popularised in the book and later film The Boys in the Boat. They came from behind in the final to beat Italy and Germany.

The crew was made up of students from the Pacific Northwest, coached to row a long, smooth style. They raced in a boat built by George Pocock, a boat builder whose cedar shells were highly regarded. One of the crew, Don Hume, was reported to have been unwell around the time of the final, and the American start was slow, before the crew moved up through the field.

What the story shows is that a well-matched crew with a smooth rhythm can come through even after a poor start. Over 2,000 metres there is time to recover, provided the crew keeps its rhythm and does not panic.

German dominance in the smaller boats

The home nation won five of the seven events, which fits with the heavy state investment in the Games.

German crews were well funded and well drilled. Their dominance in the pairs and fours shows how a nation with a deep national programme can win in smaller boats even when a university crew wins the eight.

Britain’s double sculls

Britain won the double sculls through Jack Beresford and Dick Southwood. See our profile of Jack Beresford.

Beresford was in his late thirties and had first won an Olympic medal in 1920. His gold at Berlin made him one of the most enduring British Olympians.

What rowing was like then

Boats were wooden, with fixed rigging that looks primitive compared with modern carbon-fibre shells. Coaching was less scientific, and training was shaped by access to water and the academic calendar. Race distances were already 2,000 metres, which has remained the Olympic standard since. For more on the distance, see Olympic rowing distances.

Why the 1936 regatta still matters

• It marks a point where national programmes started to shape results in a way that became standard.
• It shows how much the sport relies on crew cohesion. The US crew came from a university programme and a close-knit squad.
• It sits at the start of the story told in our history of rowing.
• It reminds us that sport and politics have long been entwined at the Games.

For the broader Olympic picture, see why Olympic rowing matters and the Olympic rowing hub.