Rowing: Men's lightweight four dropped for women's four at Olympics

New Zealand's lightweight four of James Hunter, Peter Taylor, Alistair Bond and James Lassche training for last year's Olympics. Photo / Christine Cornege

Gender balance is in for the rowing programme at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

The International Olympic Committee is promoting an even-handed push for male and female athletes in Tokyo. So there will be 526 rowers in Tokyo, 263 men, and women.

That's a reduction of 24 overall from Rio last year.

Instead of the former split of eight men's events and six for women, there will be seven each.

A women's four has been introduced, at the expense of a men's lightweight four.

Rowing New Zealand has no issue with the decisions taken by world governing body Fisa, although the Asian countries, and the likes of Denmark and Switzerland, who are strong lightweight men's performers, weren't happy.

The final vote to make the change at the Fisa congress in February was 94-67.

RNZ officials knew it was coming, and support the gender equity move, but didn't know how big the reduction would be.

"We're down 24 athletes. That's not too many, it's just how we decide how those 526 are split in what events," RNZ high performance boss Alan Cotter said yesterday.

He is on a Fisa committee which will work through the minefield that is the qualifying process and how many athletes will be in the various classes - covering heavy and lightweight events, sweep oar and sculling disciplines, small and big boats, to report back to the IOC by early October.

"There's still a bit of work to be done on that," Cotter said.

New Zealand finished fifth in the men's lightweight four final in Rio last year.

Of that quartet, James Hunter has moved into the coxless pair with Tom Murray, replacing the unbeatable Eric Murray and Hamish Bond; Peter Taylor has retired and James Lassche has joined the eight, who made a good fist of their return to Olympic racing last year, finishing sixth in the final.

The New Zealand squad headed to Europe last week for World Cup regattas in Poland this weekend and at Lucerne early next month, minus both a women's and men's four and a men's lightweight four, which is likely to be downgraded given the Fisa change.

New Zealand did field a men's four at the London Olympics in 2012, which placed 11th overall, but were not represented in either four class at Rio.

However Cotter is confident New Zealand will come up with competitive fours crews for the world championships in Florida starting on September 24.

RNZ will hold a second trial from August 1-3 to sift the candidates.