At a point when most rowers are pounding away on rivers in the wind and rain through the dark winter months, a new breed are honing their skills in brighter climes surrounded by sun, sand and waves, all the while dreaming of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Out of 17 sports that proposed an extra discipline to the International Olympic Committee, rowing came out on top with its beach sprints format added to the LA 2028 programme. While many may have noticed the addition of five new sports in baseball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash, a mini-revolution is happening on the water within a sport that will no longer have a lightweight category but will have five coastal rowing events in 2028.

Coastal beach sprints shake up this most traditional and predictable of sports by taking the core elements of rowing – a need for extreme levels of fitness and psychological toughness – and adding new layers of jeopardy and a beach-party vibe. The discipline involves a head-to-head format and begins on land with athletes running down the beach and jumping into their boats at the water’s edge, then racing out around a buoy before hurtling back to dry land, leaping out of their boats and sprinting up the beach. With frequent close finishes, their final move is to hurl themselves through the air to hit the finish line buzzer first and land, usually, with a face full of sand.

In a world where people have greater choice over which sports to watch and participate in, and minor sports’ world federations are considering how to stay popular and relevant, coastal rowing offers a less predictable and more entertaining format, while simultaneously reconnecting with a historic activity that dates back to around 1900BC in ancient Egypt where it was a significant mode of transport.

We might be a footballing nation first but this is a great addition for Team GB as we also excel at sitting-down sports and boats are part of our national island identity. We also gain a new impetus to revitalise sport and activity around the coastline in areas that have become some of the most socially and economically challenged parts of each of the home nations. The Welsh government identified that its major sports event funding was going into big cities and realised the importance of reaching and engaging a different part of the population by hosting the coastal rowing world championships in Saundersfoot and developing the Wales international coastal centre there.

Scotland has embraced the sport with St Andrews University investing in the wider flat boats used to row on the rougher waves and stepping up to become one of Britain’s 11 coastal sculling academies at East Sands Beach. Meanwhile, Glenarm in County Antrim hosted the All-Ireland Coastal Rowing Championships this summer for both beach sprint and endurance coastal rowing events. England’s coastal academies include clubs in Tynemouth, Scarborough, Whitby and Lowestoft, alongside many south coast clubs with a strong heritage in the activity. Sandbanks in Dorset was the venue for the first Commonwealth Beach Sprint Championships in 2018, followed by Namibia in 2022, and Barbados next weekend.

Britain’s Guin Batten, a member of the silver-medal quadruple sculls crew from Sydney 2000 and one of the first British female rowers to stand on a podium, has been masterminding the logistical and political course to get to this point. As chair of the World Rowing coastal commission in her spare time (and deputy chief executive of Volleyball England the rest of the time), Batten describes the two disciplines of coastal and classic rowing as the “yin and yang of the sport”, different yet beautifully complementary, both at their core about brilliant boat skills and athletic prowess and yet each providing such a contrasting spectacle to watch or participate in.

Boat costs and accessibility issues have been cleverly reduced – the wider boats are suitable for beginners and those racing at the highest level, unlike the incredibly narrow hulls that require significant expertise to master in still-water rowing. Countries don’t have to fly their equipment over as a pool of boats is provided, adding another unpredictable factor as participants won’t try out the actual boat they’ll race in until two days before they compete. At that point, they’ll need to study the boats and in particular the fin positions on the hull, which will be key to working out the optimal “buoy-rounding” techniques, all the time knowing they’ll need to judge everything again on the day once they see the size of the waves that Mother Nature chooses to throw at them.

New Zealand’s Emma Twigg, the 2024 Olympic champion and five-time Olympian, has reinvigorated her love for being in a boat by taking up the coastal discipline and won at the recent world championships in Turkey. Twigg told me she had fallen in love with beach sprints because of the “closeness of the racing”, “the beach volleyball vibes”, plus the benefit that you can watch the entire race from start to finish in the mini-stadium area, avoiding one of the insurmountable challenges of Olympic still-water rowing where you cannot ever see the whole 2km distance from one vantage point.

Like their classic still-water cousins, coastal rowers will still need to develop a formidable physiology that can both sprint and endure to compete in up to three races in a day. Each race is a lung-busting, all-out effort with an arm-wrenching, shoulder-shuddering effort to make a 180-degree turn round the buoy mid-race. New Zealand’s Olympian Finn Hamill missed the buoy by centimetres to get knocked out at the recent world championships, while Moritz Wolff, the leading favourite from Germany, stumbled in the semi-final in the beach sprint allowing Spain’s Ander Martin to come through in the closing seconds to face the reigning American champion, Chris Bak, in the final who held on to retain his title. There’s a mix of existing rowers transitioning to this new discipline and others coming in from coastal clubs, while sports scientists and performance directors work out what future coastal Olympians will look like.

The world’s best coastal rowers will share the Long Beach LA venue alongside open-water swimmers, windsurfers, foil and kitesurfing champions over the fortnight of the Games and show a different side to this otherwise seemingly strait-laced sport. Rowing’s answer to snowcross, BMX and beach volleyball is coming to LA, but if you live near the coast, then it may be coming to a beach near you soon too.

With Texas A&M up 24-20 in the third set of the NCAA women’s volleyball title match, Maddie Waak set the ball for Ifenna Cos-Okpalla. Though Logan Lednicky and Kyndal Stowers had played bigger games for the Aggies, it was Cos-Okpalla who got the call for the championship point.

She elevated and slammed the ball in between Kentucky’s defenders at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. With that kill, Texas A&M won an improbable national title, 3-0 (26-24, 25-15, 25-20).

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“They’re putting on t-shirts behind me. I can’t believe it. I’m still a little bit in disbelief,” Aggies coach Jamie Morrison said to ABC after the game. “We sent a warning shot out to the world about what we’re about.”

Kentucky, the No. 1 seed, started out strong in the first set. They built a lead as big as six points before Texas A&M started chipping away, eventually winning the set, 26-24. With that momentum, the Aggies owned the next two sets. Lednicky was the star of the match with 7 kills, 11 digs and 2 blocks. With every point won, Texas A&M’s confidence grew.

Kentucky was the third No. 1 seed that Texas A&M — a third seed — beat on the way to the national title, and every win from the Sweet 16 on was shocking. First, the Aggies came back from 2-0 to pull the reverse sweep against Louisville. Next, Texas A&M had to face undefeated, No. 1 overall seed Nebraska in Lincoln. In what was the best game of the tournament, the Aggies beat Nebraska in five sets.

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But their magic didn’t stop once the Aggies got to Kansas City. In the national semifinal, they swept No. 1 seed Pittsburgh, the first time the Panthers had been swept all season. And then in the first-ever All-SEC final, the Aggies came out victorious.

Unlike Kentucky, which won the national title in 2020 and has been one of the top teams in women’s volleyball for years, Texas A&M is a newcomer to volleyball’s elite. Though it had some good teams over the years that made it to the Elite Eight, this was the program’s first Final Four and their first national title.

Morrison took over the program in 2023, and held onto Lednicky and Cos-Okpalla. The Aggies turned the program around quickly, earning a bid to the tournament in 2023 and then making it to the Sweet 16 in 2024. This year, the Aggies went 29-4 and looked like a team on the brink. But with so many seniors, they had no time to waste and adopted the mentality of “Why not us?”

Lednicky, who played with the U.S. national team over the summer, was the heart of this team’s championship run, and the player who kept asking “Why not us?” Stowers’ comeback might be one of the best sports stories of the year. While playing for Baylor, she suffered concussions and medically retired from the sport. But after being medically cleared and deciding she had more to give to the sport, Stowers signed with Texas A&M and is now a national champion.

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Morrison has built a program that is not only a national champion, but is in a great position to continue to grow volleyball in Texas. While he will lose seniors like Lednicky and Waak, he can now show off a championship ring while on the recruiting trail.

But figuring out who will play for the Aggies next season is tomorrow’s problem. Today, Texas A&M gets to celebrate how it defied the odds to win the school’s first-ever national title in women’s volleyball.

Kentucky volleyball will look to win its second national title in five years on Sunday when it takes on Texas A&M in Kansas City.

How to watch

Sunday’s game tips off at 3:30 p.m. at the T-Mobile Center. It will air on ABC.

Preview

Kentucky comes to the game on Sunday with the edge. The Cats are No. 2 overall in the NCAA ranking, and they have previously beaten the No. 6 Aggies 3-1 in October. That game, an A&M home game, saw then No. 3 Kentucky face off against No. 9 Texas A&M, but since that meet-up, the Cats have not lost a single game, and the Aggies are right behind them with a single loss to home state rival Texas.

The Wildcats have won 27 straight games, 30-2 overall, with their last loss in September to Pittsburgh. Texas A&M comes in 28-4 overall, with a five-game win streak, after their loss to Texas destroyed their 11-game win streak.

Kentucky is no stranger to the NCAA championship. The Cats snagged their first title in 2020 after they beat Texas 3-1 in Omaha.

Texas A&M has not made an appearance at the NCAA championship but has finished in the top ten four times in the last five years, finishing in fifth place in 2024.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Texas A&M Aggies overwhelmed the Kentucky Wildcats in the final two sets of a 3-0 (26-24, 25-15, 25-18) victory to claim the school’s first-ever NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship Sunday evening inside the T-Mobile Center.

Entering the tournament as the No. 3 seed in the Lincoln Regional, Texas A&M (29-4) completed a postseason sweep of three of the tournament’s No. 1 seeds, beating Nebraska (3-2) and Pitt (3-0) before dispatching of Kentucky (30-3). The last three teams the Maroon & White beat were a combined 93-6 before their respective seasons were ended.

The Aggies became the ninth team in the 45-year history of the NCAA Championship to sweep both of their Final Four matches.

The Maroon & White never trailed in the last two sets. The opportunistic Aggies took advantage of the Wildcats’ nine service errors and 16 attack errors.

Kyndal Stowers was named the NCAA Championship Most Outstanding Player. She capped off the tournament with a .304 attack percentage, 10 kills, six digs, two service aces and one block in the triumph over Kentucky. Ifenna Cos-Okpalla, Logan Lednicky and Ava Underwood joined Stowers on the All-Tournament Team.

Texas A&M claimed the first set despite not leading until 25-24. The Wildcats pounced on the Aggies in the first set for a 9-3 advantage. Kentucky led by six on eight more occasions, before the Maroon & White clawed back into the contest. An 8-2 run, featuring two kills each by Cos-Okpalla and Lednicky, tied the contest at 20-20. With the set seesawing, the Wildcats had its first set point at 24-23, but Stowers sandwiched two kills around a block assist by Cos-Okpalla and Maddie Waak for the smash and grab.

The second set was tied twice early before the Aggies broke away. Back-to-back kills by Lednicky and a service ace by Cos-Okpalla allowed Texas A&M to open a 5-2 lead. The Maroon & White suffocated the Wildcats with a 13-3 run to open its biggest lead of the set at 19-8. Kentucky would draw no closer than seven the remainder of the set.

After Kentucky opened the third set with a service error, Cos-Okpalla put aways two kills to start a 6-1 surge out of the gate. The Wildcats cut the deficit to 10-8, but 9-3 charge by Texas A&M widened the lead to 19-11. Big Blue was closed the gap to four at 24-20, but it was too little, too late as Cos-Okpalla uncorked a booming kill for the final point.

STAT LEADERS

Kills – Logan Lednicky – 11

Hitting Percentage (Min. 10 kills) – Kyndal Stowers – .304

Assists – Maddie Waak – 29

Aces – Ifenna Cos-Okpalla; Maddie Waak – 2 

Digs – Ava Underwood – 10

Blocks – Ifenna Cos-Okpalla – 4

GAME NOTES

• Logan Lednicky recorded her 23nd-consecutive game with 10 or more kills.
• Ifenna Cos-Okpalla set the Texas A&M career record for blocks, wrapping up with 566. She also inflated her single-season school record to 199.
• Jamie Morrison joined John Dunning (first year) and Michael Sealy (second year) as one of three coaches two win an NCAA Division I Volleyball tournament in their first three years as a head coach.
• The Aggies beat all four of the No. 1 seeds of the NCAA Championship, beating Texas (3-2) in the regular season and Nebraska (3-2), Pitt (3-0) and Kentucky (3-0).

FOLLOW THE AGGIES

Visit 12thMan.com for more information on Texas A&M volleyball. Fans can keep up to date with the A&M volleyball team on Facebook, Instagram and on Twitter by following @AggieVolleyball.

Aviana, also known as Avi, is no stranger to success on the track. Before turning 18, Avi had already won three state championships and earned multiple bronze medals, along with a silver, while competing for her high school track team — and even added a school record in the process. Her winning nature carried over to Syracuse where she balanced being a student and an athlete, studying Communication and Rhetorical Studies at VPA and Sports Revenue Management & Operations at Falk College. This balance paid off as she earned top-six finishes at the 2019 ACC Indoor and Outdoor Championships in the high jump. She continued to add to her long list of track achievements during her graduate transfer year when she competed for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) where she previously held the indoor program record for 60m hurdles and the outdoor record for the 100m hurdles and heptathlon. Although she no longer competes on the track, she has found a new way to stay involved with the sport she loves.

It was always Aviana’s dream to earn a trip to TrackTown USA in Eugene, Oregon. For those who may not know, TrackTown is a world-class track and field facility organizing events such as the 2015, 2022, 2023 USATF Outdoor Championships and the 2016, 2020, and 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials. Aviana’s dream to make it to TrackTown USA, also known as Hayward Field, came true when she was selected as one of four photographers to cover the 2024 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Team Trials as park of the Black Women Photographers and TrackTown USA creative team.

“It was surreal,” Aviana said. “My goal in life, in track and field specifically, was always to make it to Hayward Field. It was supposed to be as an athlete, but I guess God had different plans for me. I ended up there with a whole new lens, literally and figuratively.”

Aviana spent over a week at TrackTown shooting world-class athletes like Olympic champion and eight-time World Champion, Noah Lyles, Olympic long jump champion, Tara Davis-Woodhall, and even Olympian and World Record breaker, Sydney McLaughlin.

The unique part about the entire situation is that Aviana was just a newbie in the sports photography world at this point. She had started sports photography just two years prior to shooting on this world-class stage and had only shot one outdoor track meet before. Despite the lack of experience, Polly Irungu, founder of Black Women Photographers, loved her photos and style.

The opportunity to shoot the Olympic Trials allowed Aviana to grow tremendously as a person but also as a photographer. While covering the Olympic Trials, she noticed that not many women of color were working as creatives although the sport is predominately black. There were only five other creatives that were black women that she saw capturing the events at TrackTown. This realization inspired Avi to be a role model and a representation for young black women and women of color who want to step into the creative world. As a freelance photographer based in NYC, she continues to refine her craft, working with athletes, brands, and events to create high-impact imagery that resonates.

“Being a photographer allows me to go out there and still feel like an athlete. I can feel the emotion. I’m capturing everything to remember the moment and to show the love and passion for the sport that I think is the hardest sport in the world, Aviana said.

 

Stay connected with Aviana on Linkedin: Aviana Goode | LinkedIn & Instagram: @goode.flicks