Some of the greatest athletes to have ever lived are participating for Team USA at the 2016 Rio Olympics. No athlete is more decorated than Michael Phelps, and few if any athletes have ever been as singularly dominant as Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky in their sports. They get a lot of media coverage, and they deserve it.
Then there’s the United States women’s coxed 8, whose dominance has gotten much less notice. With a time of 6:01.49, the boat won its third consecutive gold medal in the event Saturday and 11th consecutive world title. That level of team dominance is nearly unprecedented at the international level. Only the Soviet hockey team that won 14 straight titles from 1963 to 1976 has a more impressive streak. Among American teams, there is no corollary.
The streak is even more impressive when you consider the sport itself. Rowing — specifically the 8, which consists of eight rowers and one coxswain — may have the best claim to being “the ultimate team sport.” Having a stud individual rower doesn’t elevate a boat to the extent as, say, putting LeBron James on a basketball team. Conversely, a boat cannot win with a bad rower in it. Take someone off the street and put him or her in a lineup with seven of the best rowers ever and the boat will lose to just about any practiced crew.
The United States’ women’s 8 hasn’t had a weak link for 11 straight years, which speaks to the program’s incredible chemistry and depth. Title IX has been a driving factor in the rise of Team USA’s women’s rowing powerhouse. Enacted in 1972, it mandated that universities must offer men and women equal opportunities in sports. To compensate, athletic departments added women’s rowing programs around the country. Via New York Magazine:
According to the NCAA, in 1981–82 there were 1,187 women on 43 rowing teams in DI–DIII colleges. By the 2009–10 season there were 143 teams and 6,999 women on the water (the numbers for women’s soccer in the same period were even more astounding: from 1,855 participants to 23,650).
The national team really took off when Tom Terhaar was hired as head coach in 2001. He implemented a stricter training regimen and ramped up the competition within the team. The year after he was hired, the 8 won its first world title in seven years, then in 2004 took silver in Athens for its first Olympic medal in 20 years.
In a profile with Sports Illustrated, he explained what he felt made the Americans particularly good.
Though they may not emerge with the technique and years of experience that their international counterparts possess at the same age, Terhaar says, the American rowers come out with something even more valuable. “They know how to race [in an eight], and they’re strong,” he says. “They’re used to being on a big team, and that’s huge. They’re used to not being overly handled, to realizing that when they need to know something, they’ll get help.”
In essence, the American women’s 8 is better at being a team than any women’s 8 in the world, and really, than just about any team in any sport ever.
