Six of the 18 competitors from the 1960 coxed pair final returned: Igor Rudakov, the coxswain from the silver medal Soviet Union team; Conn Findlay and Kent Mitchell, rower and coxswain from the bronze medal United States team (Findlay had also won gold in 1956); Jens Berendt Jensen and Knud Nielsen, rowers from the fourth-place Denmark team; and Gheorghe Riffelt, a rower from the sixth-place Romania team.
Six of the 18 competitors from the 1960 coxed pair final returned: Igor Rudakov, the coxswain from the silver medal Soviet Union team; Conn Findlay and Kent Mitchell, rower and coxswain from the bronze medal United States team (Findlay had also won gold in 1956); Jens Berendt Jensen and Knud Nielsen, rowers from the fourth-place Denmark team; and Gheorghe Riffelt, a rower from the sixth-place Romania team.