rowing vs athletics

rowing and athletics both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
rowing	Yes	No	No	No
athletics	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, athletics is a hypernym of rowing; that is, athletics is a word with a broader meaning than rowing:

Other hypernyms of rowing include sport.

rowing (noun)	athletics (noun)
the act of rowing as a sport	an active diversion requiring physical exertion and competition
	participation in sports events as an extracurricular activity
	a contest between athletes