This year’s Asian Rowing Beach Sprint Championships will be the largest yet. A total of 15 nations are competing in the continental regatta, which began today on Jomtien Beach in Pattaya City, Thailand. Among that group are countries which only recently turned their attention to beach sprint rowing, including, perhaps most notably, India.
The world’s largest country by population has had relatively little success to date in rowing, although India’s Army Rowing Node won World Rowing’s program of the year award in 2025. But it held its inaugural beach sprint national championship in Goa earlier this year, and just a week ago theAndaman Islands hosted the country’s first ever beach sprint selection camp.
As well as India, five more countries are debuting at the Asian Championships this weekend: Iraq, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Vietnam. While the host nation may well be the favorite (Thailand, which repeats as host, picked up eight gold medals, five silver and two bronze in 2025), as more countries sign up, races are likely to become far tighter.