Vittorio Torcellan

Rowing has been part of the Summer Olympics since its debut in the 1900 Games. Rowing was on the program at the 1896 Summer Olympics but was cancelled due to bad weather. Only men were allowed to compete until the women's events were introduced at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal which gave national federations the incentive to support women's events and catalysed growth in women's rowing. Lightweight rowing events were introduced to the games in 1996. Qualifying for the rowing events is under the jurisdiction of the World Rowing Federation. World Rowing predates the modern Olympics and was the first international sport federation to join the modern Olympic movement.

The Henley Boat Races were a series of annual rowing races between various crews representing the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge.

Lightweight rowing is a category of rowing where limits are placed on the maximum body weight of competitors. According to the International Rowing Federation (FISA), this weight category was introduced "to encourage more universality in the sport especially among nations with less statuesque people".

The Cambridge University Boat Club (CUBC) is the rowing club of the University of Cambridge, England. The club was founded in 1828 and has been located at the Goldie Boathouse on the River Cam, Cambridge since 1882. Nowadays, training primarily takes place on the River Great Ouse at Ely.

Peter Taylor is a former New Zealand rower. He became world champion in 2009 in men's lightweight double scull.

The 1979 World Rowing Championships were World Rowing Championships that were held from 30 August – 9 September 1979 at Bled in Slovenia, Yugoslavia.

The 1978 World Rowing Championships were World Rowing Championships that were held from 30 October to 5 November at Lake Karapiro near Cambridge, New Zealand. Twenty-eight countries were represented at the regatta. In the history of the World Rowing Championships, 1978 was the only year when the lightweight rowing championships were not held in conjunction with the open men and women event; the lightweight events had already been held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in August.

The 1995 World Rowing Championships were World Rowing Championships that were held from 20 to 28 August 1995 at Lake Kaukajärvi, Tampere, Finland.

The 2016 World Rowing Championships was the 46th edition and held from 21 to 28 August 2016 at the Willem-Alexander Baan in Rotterdam, Netherlands in conjunction with the World Junior Rowing Championships and the World Rowing U23 Championships. The annual week-long rowing regatta is organized by FISA, and held at the end of the northern hemisphere summer. Because the 2016 Summer Olympics and the 2016 Summer Paralympics were the major rowing events in 2016, the World Championships programme was limited to non-Olympic events, non-Paralympic events, and the World Rowing Junior Championships were held at the same time, and also the World Rowing U23 Championships.