Photo © Vasilis Ververidis | Dreamstime.com
One of the events that will make its debut at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles is beach sprint, a hybrid of running and water sports.
Need a primer? Here it is. At the signal, competitors race from a start line in the sand, run into the water and enter their boat (being held in shallow water by handlers). The athletes then row out toward a series of buoys, around which they slalom before rowing in a straight line back to the beach, jumping out and running up the sand to hit a buzzer near their flag to mark their completion of the course. (An explanatory video can be found here.)
The sport, according to Inside The Games, takes barely three minutes to compete. But it’s an adrenaline-fueled three minutes and according to advocates, is as addictive to watch as it is to compete in.
And here’s the interesting part. While it’s usually after the Olympics that a sport’s participation bounce takes place, beach sprint is already growing exponentially, with events being staged in destinations across the United States:
- Boston, Massachusetts: For the first time, the Head of the Charles Regatta, held this past July, included beach sprint events.
- Sarasota, Florida: USRowing hosted its Inaugural Youth Beach Sprint National Championships at Lido Beach.
- Long Beach, California; New Bedford, Massachusetts and Longport, New Jersey: USRowing offered Beach Sprint ID Camps with an eye to building Team USA.
Working in the favor of prospective host destinations is the fact that the course has a fairly small footprint, generally with a total length of approximately 600 meters, including a 250-meter out-and-back on-water distance and two runs of roughly 10-50 meters on the beach at the start and finish.
The Waterfront in Long Beach has been selected as the venue for the Olympic Beach Sprint races; the same area will also host open-water swimming.
And here’s something interesting as well. Already, boat manufacturers are lining up to claim their products are the best in the business for beach sprints.
The website for the U.S. office of LiteBoat includes the verbiage, “With the announcement of Coastal Rowing Beach Sprints being added to the 2028 Olympics, we have seen a significant increase in interest for both training and racing at our location. Virtually every current US Coastal Rower has trained or raced here in Sarasota. Several of the top US athletes took their very first strokes in a Coastal Boat with us. Many rowers return to Sarasota to continue training with us and our equipment to improve their skills.”
Additionally, the site notes, “When COVID restrictions were lifted, we hosted the first official USRowing race. Since then, we have been contracted to hold USRowing Beach Sprint Trials in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. These trials are used to select U.S. athletes for international competitions and the World Rowing Coastal Championships.
Each event has grown bigger, and this year’s trials had 56 entries. A three-day event was held at the end of June for Juniors and Adults. While everyone was ultimately there to win, the Coastal spirit was on full display as information and help were shared, old friends reunited, and new friends were made. In the end, every team and athlete was cheered on as they gave their best efforts.”
Expect to hear more about this emerging discipline, not only as the Summer Games get closer, but as rowing clubs, colleges and other organizations begin staging their own competitions.
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