The history of rowing overflows with grand tales of survival and prosperity, adventure and warfare, but who could have guessed barge races in the Nile delta would leave the most lasting legacy? With rowing now reduced to sport in much of the modern world, the oared barge races of 2500 BC have become the enduring link with the past. Evidence even suggests ancient China and South-East Asia enjoyed longboat races, but, either way, the sport clearly existed long before the Roman poet Virgil first wrote about it around 20 BC in his epic Aeneid. In those days, rowing's major technological advances stemmed from such pressing reasons as survival, prosperity, adventure and warfare. While the Phoenicians and Egyptians perfected the art, the Greeks provided a critical element when they first fixed paddles to the side of a boat at a fulcrum point, increasing the efficiency of their strokes. The Romans introduced 50-metre galleys of war powered by 50 or so captive oarsmen, all stroking to the beat of a drum. Rowing and racing remained entwined over the centuries, but modern racing began with the watermen who rowed ferries across the Thames River of Great Britain in the early 18th century. The watermen raced each other, wagering money on the outcome. In 1715, a popular Irish actor named Thomas Doggett instituted an annual race from the London Bridge to Chelsea, offering a prize to the winner. The Doggett's Coat and Badge Race remains today. By the 19th century, both Great Britain and the United States were embracing competitive rowing. In Great Britain, rowers from Oxford and Cambridge universities began racing each other in 1829. In the United States, Yale and Harvard universities followed suit in 1852. The first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 recognised rowing as a sport, but the weather was too rough to hold any events. Instead, rowing debuted in the 1900 Paris Games with five events, all men's. The British dominated in the early years, then the United States, but the Soviet Union and East Germany changed the balance in the 1950s, and the field now is wide open. Women's rowing, which entered the Games at Montreal in 1976, is the same.

Technologically, two major refinements of the shell, as the rowing boat is called, boosted the sport before it ever reached the Games. First, Great Britain's Henry Clasper invented the outrigger, a framework that suspended the oarlocks outside the boat and allowed a narrower shell, increasing speed. Then J.C. Babcock of the United States invented a seat on rollers, maximising the sliding motion of rowers and letting them use longer strokes and more leg power. From there, it was just fine-tuning, like smoothing and lightening the hull and adjusting the design.