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 competitors from the 1960 coxed pair final event returned: Igor Rudakov, the Soviet Union's silver medal-winning coxswain; Conn Findlay and Kent Mitchell, American bronze medalists in 1956; Jens Berendt Jensen and Knud Nielsen, Danish rowers who took fourth place; and Gheorghe Riffelt, a Romanian rower who finished sixth.