About Samoa Rowing
Samoa Rowing Association is the national federation for rowing in Samoa. World Rowing has listed it as a member since 2000, but for most of those years the seat was empty and Samoa appeared at only a handful of regattas.
The return
In August 2026 Samoa rejoined World Rowing's Oceania development programme, and in September Alia Marquardt won bronze for Samoa in the Women's U19 Double at the 2026 Oceania and Australian Beach Sprint Championships on the Gold Coast, racing in a composite crew. It was Samoa's first medal at an international regatta. Later in September the founding members meet in Apia to adopt the constitution, elect officers and file for registration under Samoan law. The Association will then have a home in Samoa for the first time.
Past the post — Women's U23 Solo, 2026 Oceania and Australian Beach Sprint Championships, Currumbin Creek · Photo: Brad Redfern Photography
Indoor first, then the water
Samoa Rowing develops the sport in all its forms: indoor, flatwater and coastal, including Beach Sprint. It is building them in order, and indoor rowing comes first. A rowing machine needs no boat, no boathouse and no calm water. It fits in a school fale or a corridor, and it gives an honest number. The Association's first programme in Samoa is therefore indoor rowing as a sport of its own: rowing machines in schools as part of physical education, school-against-school competition with rankings and records, and prizes that are places in learn-to-row courses and development camps. French Polynesia built its rowing this way over the past ten years, and the erg score is what World Rowing's Beach Sprint programme uses to find athletes. The work starts with the Association's visit to Apia in September 2026.
On-water rowing follows from that base, as its own programme. Flatwater rowing is where our current athletes learned the sport. Beach Sprint, coastal rowing's short race from the beach out through the surf and back, is the focus of World Rowing's Oceania development programme. It joins the Olympic programme at Los Angeles 2028, and the Games come to our region at Brisbane in 2032. It suits the Pacific: raced from the beach, cheap to enter, and open to nations still building. Samoa's rowers already race both.
Who we are
Daniel Marquardt — Acting President. Daniel rowed for Samoa at the 2016 Olympic qualification regatta for Asia and Oceania and at the 2017 World Rowing Championships. He leads the Association's re-establishment ahead of the September 2026 general assembly in Apia, where the Association's officers will be elected. His page →
Our purposes
As set out in the constitution prepared for adoption in September 2026, the Association exists to develop, promote, and govern the sport of rowing in Samoa in all its forms; to enable Samoan rowers to compete internationally; and to uphold the standards of World Rowing and the Olympic movement — including its commitment to gender representation in the sport's governance.
Samoa Rowing Association is the Association's legal name; "Samoa Rowing" is how you'll see us on the water.