Impress your friends

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  Rowing for sport began in 1828 with the 1st 'boat race' between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, an annual tradition that continues to this day

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  Rowing has featured at every modern Olympic Games with the exception of the first, in Athens 1896, when poor weather forced the cancellation of the event

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  Female athletes first competed in Olympic rowing at the Montreal 1976 Games

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  Great Britain's Sir Steve Redgrave, who had retired after the Atlanta 1996 Games, returned for Sydney 2000 and won his fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal

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  Also in London, New Zealanders Hamish Bond and Eric Murray broke the coxless pairs world record in their first heat, on their way to the gold medal

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  An Olympic rower consumes an average of 6,000 calories per day during training, and rows about 10,000km per year

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  To avoid excessive weight, the cox tends to be small and light, but a minimum weight has been established: 50kg for women and 55kg for male

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  The cox once used a megaphone to shout orders, but now there are small speakers distributed along the boat so that all the rowers can hear their instructions

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  At Paris 1900, a French boy was plucked from the crowd to act as cox for Dutch rowers François Antoine Brandt and Roelof Klein – and he won an Olympic gold medal

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  Romania's Elisabeta Lipa won 8 Olympic medals (5 golds) and holds the record for Olympic longevity, with 20 years between her victories at 1984 and 2004

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  USA rower John Kelly, who took gold at Antwerp 1920 and won 126 consecutive single skull races, was the father of world-famous actress Grace Kelly