As rainstorms swept the lake on the Saturday of the 2026 world championships, a bunch of 2025 champions were crowned again, some new faces collected gold, the USA swept to the top of the medal table thanks to their mastery of fours, and the later heats ended up as impromptu time-trials as unfair winds threatened. It was wetter, but no less sensational than what had come before.
Pritchard takes gold in the face of the unexpected
First up in the medal races were the PR1 finals. It’s all too easy to forget the extra life-issues which many para-athletes face, so seamlessly do they navigate them to race on equal terms at the championships. Massive morning crowds on Saturday cheered as PR1 M1x Briton Ben Pritchard, the clear favourite, defended his title without apparent trouble. But after the race he briefly vanished, and when he reached the mix zone on his return, with inspiring frankness he explained it had been anything but smooth due to an everyday PR1 rower’s problem.
“I have no bowel control, so unfortunately it just released on the way up to the start line. It is what it is, you know,” Pritchard said. “That was at the back of my mind today. Because of that all things about (fast) times had to go. I just had to race the race and see if I could cross the line first, and luckily I did. So I’m pretty happy with that, to be honest.” He had gone to clean up before coming to be interviewed.
Knowing that makes more sense of a row in which he did not quite get the margin over the other athletes that we know he is capable of, though he still set a new world championships best time, slightly outside the official world best. No athlete needs a sudden distraction before their biggest performance of the year. Yet he was strong enough, and experienced enough, to make it look easy. Italy’s Giacomo Perini briefly threatened at the start then dropped away, leaving the grand old men of PR1 men’s sculling, Roman Polianskyi (UKR) and Erik Horrie (AUS), to fight it out for the minor medals as Pritchard put every scrap of effort he could into keeping himself a few seconds ahead to clinch the gold. Horrie took silver and Polianskyi, who is finding it difficult training in a war zone, was delighted to get bronze.
“I just let [Ben] get that little bit too much,” said Horrie. “Being on the podium is unbelievable. But as an athlete you want to win, we don’t go out there to be second, third, fourth. We always go out there to win gold. For one athlete it happens and today it was Ben. I take my hat off to him, like I have always, he’s an unbelievable rower, and as an old person I’m just trying to keep him real, keep chasing. I’m happy compared to last year, it was a lot better race on my part.”
The women’s race was less eventful, Ukraine’s Anna Sheremet defending her 2025 title without any visible difficulty, though Belgian runner-up Laurence and rowing debutante Vandevyver looks like someone who will improve rapidly with another year in the boat. For now the gap is nearly half a minute and both are well ahead of Claire Ghiringhelli (SUI). Fan favourite Eva Mol was fourth. “It was difficult,” said Sheremet afterwards. “I wanted to [rest] but I couldn’t,” but she is underestimating the iron control she currently has over this field, and the gap the rest must find a way to close if they are to challenge her.
America sweeps the fours
It was quartets day on the lake after that, the fours and quads taking to the water. Three of the 2025 world champions successfully defended their titles, only the British men’s four falling short. They were not unhappy though: their event has been turned upside down by an exciting new combination from the USA eights group, who claimed the nation’s first gold in this event for 40 years, after a prolonged mid-course battle closed out by an expert sprint which took both the Dutch and the British to the cleaners.
“What a great race from the Dutch and the US, that was awesome, good to be part of that,” said GBR stroke George Bourne. “We did training camps: lost our flow, found our flow a little bit. We had a good race today, just beaten by two class crews, we can hold our heads high and just roll with the punch.”
“It’s a long time since we’ve been racing, so it feels as if it’s been a long time since we were in that heat [of competition],” said his crew-mate James Robson. “We came in, learned a lot in the heat, raced the semi and put a decent amount of stuff right, but just not enough to overhaul the Americans in the semi-final. Today to be honest we put ourselves in a really strong position out in lane four, just put everything we had out there today.” They had in fact been right up alongside the Dutch co-leading for most of the middle thousand, but the USA charge to the line from third to first ripped both the other fours apart.
“Maybe we weren’t quite where we wanted to be coming through the first 500, but we practice our calls all summer,” said USA 3-seat Chris Carlson. “We know where they’re going to be and we just committed to those.” The Americans also displayed an energy in their sprint which has become something of a trademark for their crew boats here. “We got a lot of practice when we were on training camp in Erba,” added Carlson. “So it’s about muscle memory, coming back to that. I’m really grateful that we got to have our complete race today.”
For US bow Gus Rodriguez, who was tipped into the water after the finish line by crew-mate Peter Chatain, it was particularly special since his dad rowed in the same seat in the same crew at the 1988 Olympics, taking silver. And to crown their experience, as the USA men were being interviewed, their women’s four was crossing the line to add another gold, a clean sweep of fours titles this summer along with their para-crew.
The US women’s four defended their crown by a relatively narrow margin but again with a superb sprint. They took the first thousand metres to kill off the Dutch, the two crews swapping the lead at that point but staying close together at first. This gave Australia an opening and they in turn had a go at the Dutch, wreaking enough trouble in the closing stages to narrowly claim silver. All three crews smashed through the 6:14.36 record set by the Kiwis on this course 12 years ago: a phenomenal achievement.
“We’re really excited to be in this field and to race with such high level athletes,” said Dutch stroke Tinka Offereins. “No I don’t feel any disappointment. I’m really proud to be so fast, I look forward to race again and maybe win! I saw out of the corner of my eye all the orange people, and I knew they were cheering us so loud, it gave us extra strength.”
“We predicted that the Dutch would come out harder at the start to try and stay with us through the middle,” said Australia’s Jacqui Swick. “So weren’t flustered by that, and the main focus was practise our race plan, and know that wherever we were, the second K was ours. Obviously US had that better edge at the end of it, but completely well-deserved by then.”
“It was one of those crews where you have a hard time picturing them losing, you have so much faith in the people around you,” said US stroke Kaitlin Knifton of her crew-mates. “I visualised the race so many times, it was so hard for me to visualise anything other than exactly what happened.” “Any time I’m not in a boat with these three women in practice, I’m quite honestly afraid of them,” added Teal Cohen. “Every time I have to line up next to one of you I’m so intimidated!” As the rest assured her they felt the same way, Molly Bruggeman described her pre-race feelings. “I was just excited this morning. I wasn’t even that nervous, I was just excited because I knew there was another gear that we needed to show, and we were all ready to show it.”
Quads keep hold of their titles
The Dutch women and Italian men maintained a firm grip on their number one quads world status, the Dutch W4x like the US women’s four having just one change in their 2025 crew. Their row to the title was a nerve-jangling episode with the British hard on their heels and never more than two seconds down. But the home favourites rode the pressure well and lasted through a series of efforts from the British crew to get back next to them. Romania had led off the start but soon began to fall back and the USA came into the bronze medal position which they then held to the line.
“We are a fast-starting crew but we maybe needed to trust the process that we would be able to dig deep in the second thousand,” said Marieke Keijser (NED). “Compared to the semi-final where it got a bit wobbly. Today we wanted to make a point and keep it really tight, and we did. This home crowd we’re never going to find it anywhere, it’s so enjoyable, we didn’t want to miss out.”
Britain’s quad now has the magic of uber-competitive stroke Imogen Grant on board, but their build-up to the championships was trickier than hoped for and it was a great outcome to get silver — the first championship medal for senior newcomer Finnola Stratton — so close to the Dutch winners.
“Sometimes we take our seasons for granted, illnesses, injuries and coming together,” said Briton Lola Anderson. “On reflection looking back on this year we had some amazing flying moments, and then we’ve had situations where we have to be patient and allow the boat to come back up to speed with us, with our injuries, and I think we’re proud of moving on from each of our races to come together with our best row in the final.”
Italy came into the men’s quads event here knowing they had not yet got 2026 right, but as men on a mission to prove they were still the best. Gold in a time of 5:33 (only just outside the world best set by the Dutch at the Tokyo Olympics) was confirmation of that, and they achieved it in the most satisfying form, stalking initial leaders Germany for two-thirds of the way before dropping the hammer and passing them, then simply lifting whenever Germany tried to get back on terms. Behind Britain mopped up third place without any real challenge from the Dutch, still significantly close to the leaders.
“Our best time over the course, very good fast conditions,” said Luca Rambaldi (ITA). “I’m very happy to have done this back to back.” “We did a hell of a lot of work at Piedluco,” said bow-man Luca Chiumento. “We took it very seriously because you know in Varese it wasn’t so good, we worked a lot and it pays back, this win.” They were pushed to it by a superb performance from the Germans who played a blinder with a much slower lane (L3), and it could have been the reverse result.
“It was a really really tough race, we knew it would be tough,” said Britain’s Rory Harris. “The times from the semi-finals suggested a close race. We gave everything we could, nothing went wrong, sometimes you’re just beaten by a better crew. We’re getting closer to the front each year, so I’m proud of all of us.”
Harris commented on the stadium feel of the crowd, too. “The noise the last 500, it’s just what the sport needs. It makes it more exciting, it’s like that fifth member of the team, just gives you that extra lift.”
Reigning world champion out of the singles
Of all the top single scullers here at the regatta, the only casualty of a rainy Saturday was Greek reigning world champion and Tokyo gold medallist Stefanos Ntouskos, who trailed in fourth as Yauheni Zalaty (AIN2) led his semi-final home, chased by a relentless Jonas Juel (NOR) who briefly led early on before Zalaty resumed normal service. Once again the ex-lightweight Victor Marcelot did France proud, giving Ntouskos no chance to regain a qualifying position after busting past him at the third timing marker.
In the other men’s semi-final the audacity of Uruguay’s Bruno Cetraro Berriolo put him within spitting distance of defending champion Olli Zeidler, but since for the last 100 metres the German was rolling along at rate 31 we can surmise he did not feel threatened. US uber-racer Sam Melvin did not disappoint, having a quick punch-up with the Uruguayan to come through into second, and he is looking every bit as dangerous as Zalaty: these two are the ones most likely to challenge Zeidler for the gold on Sunday.
Irishman Fintan McCarthy did a great job to finish fourth in his first time at the championships in the openweight single, and though he will have a good chance of winning the B-final if he can catch Ntouskos and Schaetzle out, we can apparently expect to see him back in a crew boat next year.
The women’s semis pitted Karolien Florijn (NED) and Lauren Henry (GBR) against one another again, but both played it carefully with the final looming a day later, and though they ended as the two quickest from Saturday’s races, Henry kept it ticking along without having to put out a full effort, as Florijn once again dropped her rate right down at the end. Whilst one hopes she’s just keeping her powder dry for the race which matters, with recent injury there may be other reasons why she’s nursed her effort so carefully all week. Lithuania’s Viktorija Senkute trundled along in third, also showing no sign of the startling speed we know she is capable of and which she has a habit of pulling out in finals.
