Matt Smith Delivers the Inside Scoop

Perhaps no one knows the inside story of the evolution of international rowing and the politics of world and Olympic rowing than Matt Smith, who was development director of FISA (Féderation Internationale des Societés d’Aviron, predecessor of World Rowing) from 1992 to 1995 and executive director from 1995 to 2021.

Smith coached and assisted Thor Nilsen in Piediluco, Italy, from 1986 to 1989 and was USRowing’s program director from 1989 to 1992. Now retired and working on consulting projects, he lives in Rome.

Rowing News spoke with Smith about lightweight rowing, the global growth of rowing, coastal and indoor rowing, and the controversial shorter course at the LA Games.

Rowing News: Tell us the backstory of adding lightweight events to the Olympic program. Why and how did it happen? What were the drawbacks and successes?

“To track the backstory–the why and how it fit into our overall strategy—we need to travel back to 1980 when Juan Antonio Samaranch was elected IOC president during the troubled boycott period of the Montreal and Moscow Games. Samaranch was elected based on his call for unity and “universality” of the Olympic movement.

Universality was a new word heard around the Olympic movement that, up to then, was a mainly European affair. The number of countries participating at the Games was growing, and they demanded attention, which Samaranch promised. In 1981, Samaranch created the Olympic Solidarity Commission and in 1984 formed a budget from which national Olympic committees could request funding for coaching courses to help develop sports in their countries.

FISA realized quickly that this was an additional resource for developing rowing and following the “universality” path. Thor Nilsen was elected chair of the FISA Competitive Rowing Commission in 1985 and was tasked with creating what became the FISA Coaching Development Program.

Thor hosted a major conference that year with the world’s leading coaches and, from the guidance provided by this event, he and our team in Piediluco, Italy, where I coached and worked from 1986 to 1988, created the coaching-development manuals, levels 1 and 2. Riccardo Ibarra of Argentina was also part of the team as the first coaching consultant for Latin America.

Thor used the Paolo D’Aloja Memorial Training Camp and Regatta in April 1986 to invite many developing countries to Piediluco and run coaching courses and provide advice on the water. Over the years, many rowers and coaches from all over the world have benefited from this training camp and regatta, which is still offering the training camp 38 years later.

Denis Oswald became FISA president in 1989 upon the death of Thomi Keller and charted an IOC-friendly strategy after the rather conflictual relationship that Keller had with Samaranch. Oswald realized quickly that Olympic relevance was now measured by a sport’s “universality,” which had become a major factor in evaluating a sport’s Olympic status as well as dividing up growing television revenue.

A major stumbling block to the development strategy was the nature of Olympic rowing events at the time; they were all heavyweight. As development director beginning in 1992, I would meet with Asian sports ministers and national Olympic committee presidents who would say, “Rowing! Are you crazy? We have no chance against those huge Russians, Germans, and Americans! We are not investing in rowing!”

Given such feedback, it was obvious that for rowing to be more “universal” (i.e., to get more countries to fund their rowing programs), we had to demonstrate that there were events that offered a level playing field. Oswald then undertook the huge challenge of proposing a change to the Olympic program to include lightweight rowing.

This went against the existing powers that be, and FISA found itself with a big family feud on its hands. The proposal, which would cut the men’s coxed pair and coxed four as well as the women’s four to include the three lightweight events (men’s and women’s doubles and men’s four) had to be passed with a two-thirds majority of the national federations at the 1993 FISA Extraordinary Congress in Budapest. After heated debate, it passed by just one vote. It was a very difficult time inside FISA, since even the FISA Council voted not to support Oswald’s proposal.

After this vote and change, we now could convince Asian, African, and Latin American countries that rowing had listened and made changes to the sport that would create opportunities for them. There was never a promise that developing countries would suddenly be on the podium, but now there was a chance.

What couldn’t be overcome easily was the huge advantage of tradition, expertise, talent, and money. The lightweights in developed rowing countries jumped on this with experienced coaches, Olympic funding for training, specially designed boats, and talent. Just fostering coaches around the world was a huge undertaking, especially with FISA’s limited budget.

Gradually, the word universality was no longer heard in the halls of the IOC, and our special category was increasingly attacked by other sports that also wanted a special category and were using the same argument about the potential development impact.

The only other sports with separate categories were those in which an athlete’s safety was at stake, such as combat sports where weight is a determining factor. Olympic President Jacques Rogge allowed our special category to continue during his reign even as the antagonistic voices grew louder. Eventually, however, fighting the opponents of rowing’s special category became untenable, and it became apparent that our special category was doomed.

That’s when World Rowing President Jean-Christophe Rolland and I formed a strategy group that included a Price Waterhouse expert and came up with the idea that shifting these precious 72 Olympic quota spots to coastal rowing was a way forward. These 72 slots were 72 rowers around the world, every four years, who could become Olympians. We did not want to lose these slots for the rowers of the future.”

Rowing News: Tell us about the growth in World Rowing member countries. How was that accomplished? And where do we go from here?

“Because FISA had to grow its “universality” on a limited budget, it began staging coaching courses around the world. But for an Olympic Solidarity coaching course to get funded, it had to have the approval of the national Olympic committee of the hosting country, and each NOC was allocated only one or two per year, which meant a fight among all the sports in a country to get those precious courses. So we did the best we could with phone calls and faxes.

A big step forward was taken in 1992 when FISA decided to allocate funding to create the full-time position of development director and I was hired and moved to Switzerland. I began by traveling to all 14 of the former Soviet Union “new” countries where rowing existed but where they had to form their own national federations and try to help their clubs survive without heavy state funding. I had the good fortune of making this trip with the former sports minister of the Soviet Union and his deputy, who was a rowing man. Rowing was basically a professional sport in the Soviet Union with clubs open only to Olympic-level athletes on state salaries. All coaches had to do was coach, so recruiting and fundraising were foreign skills.

In 1993, we focused on Asia, and I visited many countries to promote rowing and help establish national federations, recruit and educate rowers, coaches, and federation leaders, and get them boats. We collected old boats from developed countries and sent them in containers. This was during the time of the economic growth of East, Southeast and Central Asia, when the idea of taking part in sports alongside work or studies began to take form. Good progress was made all over Asia in these early days.

In 1994, Africa was next, and I visited as many countries as possible. I was even kidnapped in Nigeria but managed to get released unharmed—but without my money. We all recall the re-entry of South Africa at the 1992 Olympics, and this country served as a base for development in southern Africa. Cameroon served as a base for development in western Africa, and Kenya was the base in eastern Africa. Egypt and Tunisia were the bases for northern Africa. Great progress took place here. Rowing was growing nicely in Latin America, too.

How did we do? At the beginning of 1992, FISA had 64 member national federations; in 2021, the total stood at 156. Participation in qualifying for rowing in the Games went from 44 in 1992 to a peak of 116 in 2016 (despite reductions in the overall quota). The remaining countries on the potential list were either desert countries and islands without lakes or rivers or very poor countries where all sports struggled to get a hold.”

Rowing News: How did World Rowing get into indoor and coastal rowing?

“For coastal rowing, we have to credit the French Rowing Federation and its president in the 1990s, Denis Masseglia, who later became president of the French national Olympic committee.

Masseglia came from Marseilles, where they rowed on the sea, and flat-water rowing was dying. He allocated resources and commissioned research to create the self-bailing coastal rowing boats that are now standard equipment. It was quickly adopted by clubs all along the Mediterranean in France, Spain, and Italy and became a FISA championship in 2007.

The problem, though, was that they were using the sailing model of a triangular race out at sea. No one could follow it from land or film it, so no one could understand what was going on.

A breakthrough took place when Guin Batten took over as chair of the Recreational Rowing Commission. Guin and I discussed the fact that an event did not exist if people could not see it from land or on television. The format had to change.

So the 2010 championships in Bari, Italy, were modified so the finish line was near the quai, a big screen near the finish provided television coverage, and spectators could follow the racing. GPS units were also tested by Swiss Timing.

In October 2010, the organizer in Bari, Pasquale Triggiani, Guin and I used the extra day Sunday to test beach starts and finishes in Bari. It was implemented successfully and called Beach Sprints by Pasquale at the 2011 Mediterranean Beach Games in Pescara, Italy.

Since then, Beach Sprints have been on the program of many regional and world events and have become the answer for sports development in countries on the sea or ocean. This is now the major avenue for growing the number of member countries. Our strategy team in Lausanne came up with this as a proactive alternative for the IOC to avoid losing the 72 lightweight quota places. This strategy has proved successful, as coastal rowing has been included for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Indoor rowing has been on my radar for a very long time as executive director. Indoor rowing was developed successfully by Concept2, which was staging popular events and growing this discipline of the sport. We at FISA tried many times to see where we could add value to what was already being done so well by Concept2, but we did not have the resources, human or financial, at the time to be of any help.

There were big thinkers at Concept2 who envisioned a higher status for indoor rowing—even in the Games—and this was where World Rowing could be of assistance. Big steps forward were made in 2019 when Concept2 and World Rowing agreed to stage the World Rowing Indoor Championships, beginning in February 2020 with Concept2 as the presenting sponsor.

We were successful in getting indoor rowing included in the first World Urban Games in Budapest and many other world events. A breakthrough was the Covid-induced first virtual world indoor championships in February 2021, presented with the help of our television and technology partners. The chance to compete virtually on global-streaming television was a huge step forward and opened many new doors for promoting the sport. Indoor rowing is currently a path for many promotional and commercial opportunities for World Rowing.”

Rowing News: Why will the LA2028 regatta be 1,500 meters instead of the standard 2,000? Why not have the LA2028 events in Sarasota-Bradenton?

“Paris will have surfing in French Polynesia, and there are reports Oklahoma City will host the 2028 whitewater events.

The bidding process for the 2024 Olympic Games involved not just Los Angeles but also Paris, Budapest, and Rome. This meant that all the bids had to conform to the technical standards required by the international Olympic sport federations, and for us, it is 2,000 meters with eight lanes.

In 2016, our Olympic bid team and I visited all four cities that were bidding at the time. Paris had an existing venue at Vaires-sur-Marne that had just been renovated. We staged a World Cup there in 1997 and we knew it well.

Budapest was proposing a fantastic course that situated the starting bridge at their proposed Olympic village. Their proposed course involved widening an existing canal near the city center.

Rome wanted to build a new course between the city and the airport along the airport motorway, but by this point new venues were no longer allowed by the IOC, so the Rome venue would have been in either Sabaudia or Piediluco.

For Los Angeles, we first considered Lake Casitas, the site of the 1984 Olympic regatta, but that was rejected because consistent water level and volume could no longer be guaranteed after the recent droughts. Next, a complete analysis of all possible bodies of water in and around LA was undertaken, as well as a review of all existing regatta courses in California, including Lake Natoma in Sacramento, the Olympic training center in Chula Vista, and Lexington Reservoir near San Francisco.

The Long Beach Marine Stadium was considered also, since it was the site of the 1932 Olympic regatta, but the Seventh Street Bridge at 500 meters lowered its attractiveness. There was no chance for a new rowing venue because of the IOC’s ban on new construction, and since the LA Games were going to be financed privately, there was no budget for large projects.

The LA bid committee had decided that all events should be in or very near LA, not in other places around California and the nation. Given this limitation, the closest option was Lake Perris, which is outside of LA near Riverside. It is at least a two-hour trip from the Olympic Village and would require a satellite Olympic village at a local university, with all the extra catering, transport, and security. The logistics of such a remote location are highly problematic.

Eventually, Budapest and Rome withdrew, leaving a two-city contest between Paris and LA. Then, in 2017, the IOC awarded two editions of the Games at the same time: Paris in 2024, LA in 2028. It was now decided.

Next, the IOC told the sport federations that if they wanted to stay in the Games, they would have to be more flexible with their rules and venue requirements so competition could take place near the center of the Games. The clear message to us was that a venue far outside the center of the Olympics was not positive for the future of rowing.

In addition, there was a strong feeling in Lausanne that rowing had become too rigid with our requirements after recent Olympic regattas where there were very early races and many delays and several competition days were canceled because of  wind and weather.

So we then focused on Long Beach. A group of FISA leaders and technical staffers traveled there the day after the 2017 world championships in Sarasota-Bradenton so we could inspect all aspects of this option. All the issues of this site were presented, including the challenge of closing a large portion of the harbor for hundreds of motorboats, yachts, and sailboats for the whole summer, except for limited times, for logistical, construction, and security purposes.

A floating television road will have to be installed, like the one in Sarasota, which will require sinking pylons. And the Paralympic Games follow in August, and then a few months to dismantle everything—not easy decisions for the local politicians, and a very expensive undertaking for LA2028.

Several follow-up visits took place, and many options were analyzed by World Rowing’s architect and local architects. We measured all possible alternatives and we just could not get the start line out past the Seventh Street Bridge. We measured down to the centimeter all possible options but simply could not make it work for the lanes. The only way to make it happen was to place the starting bridge on the “finish-line side of the Seventh Street Bridge pylons, with warming up taking place on the other side of the bridge.

Long Beach offers many positives: it’s in the center of the Games; rowers can sleep in the Olympic Village at UCLA with the other athletes; the number of spectators will be huge and will leave a massive legacy for rowing in this densely populated area of Los Angeles County. The promotional benefits for the sport will be tremendous, similar to London and Rio.

The drawbacks are also there: a shortened course, seawater and tide. The timing of the races will vary with the tide tables to find the best slack-tide moments. FISA has decided that the sport should not change for one event; therefore, all rowing qualification events will stay at 2,000 meters.

Returning to your questions, there is no whitewater-kayak course in Southern California, and a new venue cannot be constructed, so this event will have to take place elsewhere, which means our canoe-kayak friends will have to compete away from the center of the Games. Whitewater courses are very expensive to build and maintain, and very few demonstrate a solid post-Games financial model.

You also mentioned surfing taking place in French Polynesia. Well, any real surfer will tell you that the Atlantic Ocean is a mill pond in July. No serious surfing takes place in Biarritz or along the Atlantic coast of France then. In fact, the inclusion of surfing in the Paris program was a surprise for hard-core surfers. Since French Polynesia is officially part of France, the surfing competition is taking place on French soil—and in a dream location for the athletes.

Staging the event so far away raised the eyebrows of the sustainability and carbon-footprint people. We inquired whether coastal rowing could take place there also to take advantage of the temporary infrastructure and television equipment. This was when the inclusion of coastal rowing in Paris 2024 was still under consideration. The answer was a very clear no, as they wanted to minimize the number of people traveling so far.

In terms of finances, we did ask whether Long Beach was chosen to save money, and the organizing committee told us that the cost of maintaining security for the whole summer and shutting down many businesses during the lockdown for construction is sizable. It’s clear that the Long Beach option is not cheaper but more complex and expensive.

I totally support this decision.”

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