Olympic Countdown: women’s pair

The women’s pair was included in the Olympic programme at the first Games in which women’s rowing was featured – the 1976 Olympics. Of these past ten Olympic rowing regattas, Romania has secured medals at five of them. It has always been gold and the name Andrunache has featured prominently.

Romanian rower Georgeta Andrunache is one of the most medalled Olympic rowers of all time. She has won the same number of Olympic medals as Great Britain’s Steve Redgrave (five gold medals and one bronze) and sits in second position behind compatriot Elisabeta Lipa on the list of all-time top Olympic female rowers. Andrunache is inextricably linked to the history of the women’s pair in Olympic rowing.

While Redgrave assembled his Olympic collection at five Olympic Games in four different boat classes, Andrunache won her six Olympic medals at just three Olympic Regattas in two boat classes: the pair and the eight. She is the only rowing athlete, male or female, to ever have won two Olympic gold medals at a single Olympic Rowing Regatta at two consecutive Olympic Games.  Andrunache accomplished this feat at Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004.

At the Beijing Games in 2008, Andrunache scored yet another astonishing accomplishment, that of claiming her third consecutive Olympic title in the pair. She won a second medal at those Games as well – bronze in the eight. Andrunache’s crewmates included other female rowing greats such as Viorica Susanu, with whom she won two Olympic golds in the pair and also in the eight. And Doina Ignat, with whom she claimed her first Olympic title in the pair.

London 2012 saw Andrunache’s fourth and final Olympic participation in the pair. This time, however, it was Great Britain dominating.

Great Britain’s Helen Glover and Heather Stanning have remained unbeatable ever since becoming Olympic Champions in front of their home crowd at the London Olympics. Their gold was also the first Olympic gold in women’s rowing for Great Britain.

After London, Stanning took a year out from rowing and Glover, with new partner Polly Swann, won gold at the 2013 World Rowing Championships. The next year Glover and Stanning were back together and set a new World Best Time in the final of the World Rowing Championships, breaking the previous Romanian World Best Time that had stood for 12 years.

The potential for the British duo to win their second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the women’s pair at Rio 2016 is highly likely as often Glover and Stanning have embedded a race plan that has them leading for the entire race and winning by handy margins. Such a result would place Great Britain in second position on the all-time Olympic medals table for the women’s pair with a total of three medals, two of them gold.