The most famous female rower in U.S. history was Ernestine "Ernie" Bayer, who fought for decades to make female rowing an accepted sport. Bayer, who died in 2006 at the age of 97, is known as the mother of women's rowing in the United States. Rowing, along with other physically demanding sports, was considered off-limits for women in the early decades of the 20th century. Bayer founded the Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club in the 1930s and the first women's race was held on the Schuylkill River in 1939. Tirelessly promoting the sport, Bayer attracted hundreds of women to the water. After the 1972 passage of Title IX, which required equality in college sports programs, several colleges added women's rowing programs and the sport thrived.
Ernestine Bayer
More than just a promoter of the sport, Bayer was one of the best rowers in history. Born too early to compete in the Olympics or at the World Championships, Bayer dazzled her peers as she continued to compete against women who were in their 20s and 30s. At the age of 75, she rowed with the U.S. eight that had won gold at the Olympic Games in 1984. The team members who rowed with Bayer gushed that the boat moved just as smoothly through the water as it did during the Olympics. Bayer was still rowing and setting age group records until she suffered a stroke at the age of 96.
Silken Laumann
A medalist in 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996, Canadian Silken Laumann captured the heart of her country and the world at the 1992 Olympic Games. The reigning world champion in single sculls, Laumann was practicing 78 days before the Olympic finals when another boat smashed through her scull and shredded her leg. Nerves and muscles severed, fibula broken, Laumann endured five operations and then, about a month after the accident, rode in a wheelchair down to the dock, climbed into her scull and resumed training. At the Olympics, she sprinted her way to a bronze medal, a feat that is regarded as the most amazing comeback in Canadian sports history. In 1996, she concluded her Olympic career with a silver medal, and then became a successful motivational speaker.
Katherine Grainger
The most successful rower in British history, Katherine Grainger was named the Olympic Athlete of the Year in 2010 for the sport of rowing. She and her doubles partner, Anna Watkins, dominated the field at the World Championships in New Zealand and went undefeated in 2010. In addition, Grainger has also been a top performer in singles and quad sculls. A four-time world champion, Grainger earned silver medals at the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympics.
Eketarina Karsten-Khodotovitch
Rated as the best woman rower in the world in 2010, Karsten-Khodotovitch has won three Olympic gold medals and six world championships. In doing so, she became a national hero in her home country of Belarus. The World Championships were in Belarus in 2009, and Karsten-Khodotovitch captured another crown at the age of 37. A relative nonathlete as a girl, Eketerina, a 6-foot, 172-pound high school student, asked to go to the Minsk School of Rowing, which was recruiting, and the rest is history.
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