Athletistic / Olympic Games. Soviet rowers were among the best in the world, and over the nearly 40 years that the USSR team participated in the Olympic Games, they won 12 gold medals. However, in the late 80s of the 20th century, the situation began to change, not for the better for Soviet rowing. And after the collapse of the USSR, things took a completely bad turn.

During the seven Olympic Games held in the modern history of Russia (starting with the 1996 Games in Atlanta), Russians in rowing won only five medals, and only one of them was gold. The guiding star of this sport in our country was the victory of Sergei Fedorovtsev, Igor Kravtsov, Alexey Svirin and Nikolai Spinyov in the quadruple sculls at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. This success became a real sensation, because at that time no one expected such a thing from the Russians.

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Rowing is a very difficult sport from a technical point of view, because athletes spend years to achieve the necessary synchronicity. Therefore, in a double four, it is important to be not so much an individual strong athlete, but a real team. It is not surprising that the main secret of the Russians’ success at Athens 2004 lies in the team.

Photo source: IOC

Interestingly, these four included representatives of different generations. Igor Kravtsov and Nikolai Spinyov competed at the junior age and first took part in the Olympic Games at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. Sergei Fedorovtsev joined them only in 2001, and Alexey Svirin became a member of this team a year before the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Until 2002, the rower (the first rower from the stern of a boat, by whom all others are equal in rowing) in this team was Nikolai Spinev, after him this role was passed to Igor Kravtsov for a year and a half, and already in the Olympic season was hosted by Sergei Fedorovtsev . As a result, in Athens, the roles were distributed as follows: the rower was Fedorovtsev, the second number was Svirin, the third number was Kravtsov, and Spinyov was chosen as the first number. This arrangement of rowers was a great discovery of the coaches led by Yuri Malyshev.

The Russian rowers usually always started strongly, but in the second half of the distance they were no longer able to maintain their own pace, which is why they were not able to cross the finish line first.

All rowing competitions at the 2004 Olympic Games were held at the Schinias Rowing Center. The four-man doubles began in Athens from August 15 to 22. In the first preliminary round, Fedorovtsev, Spinyov, Svirin and Kravtsov took second place, losing almost two seconds to the Polish rowers. In the semifinals, the Russians swam even worse than in the preliminary round, but once again managed to finish their series in second place, one and a half seconds behind the Czech team. This guaranteed our athletes’ participation in the final.

Video taken from the official channel of the Russian Rowing Federation on YouTube

August 22 became the holiday of Russian sports. In the final, Fedorovtsev, Spinyov, Svirin and Kravtsov traditionally got off to a good start. Everyone expected that closer to the middle of the 2-kilometer distance they would run out of steam and let their opponents pass them again. But this time everything was different: the Russians increased their advantage only every ten meters. At the threshold of 1,500 meters, the Russian athletes were still in the lead, but it was clear on their faces that they were already working with muscle memory and could weaken at any moment. However, this did not happen.

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Soviet and Russian rowers have not won Olympic gold since the 1980 Moscow Games. It was in Athens, 24 years later, that this unfortunate streak would end. The Russians were 0.58 seconds ahead of the Czech team and performed a miracle. Unfortunately, to this day, the Russian national rowing team does not have a single gold medal. There are never too many miracles.

Nikita Serbakov, Athletistic



Athletistic