The final day of the Seville World Cup saw a dominant Dutch eight top the podium despite malfunctioning kit, and perhaps the first signs of a resurgence in German fortunes.
The Deutschland team headed the medal table, thanks largely to a straightforward win for their mixed double scull which kicked them from three to four golds. But even in only Olympic classes they matched the Dutch with three victories.
A combination of recruitment, solving the German federation’s issues with star sculler Olli Zeidler and putting in coaches the athletes trust has clearly worked its magic. Zeidler beat Yauheni Zalaty again in a race where behind them Belgium’s Tristan Vandenbussche surprised Norway’s Jonas Juel in a cheeky last-ditch rate hike to claim bronze. And the two German quads added more gold to the haul, though neither of their eights was able to reach the podium.
“I did a lot more work in the boat this year, and it worked out pretty well I think,” said Zeidler before squatting on the floor of the mix zone tent to sign dozens of autographs for the young local volunteers. “I’m trying out a lot of new things this year, testing every few weeks, to see if I can find a bit of new speed,” he added.
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Time to tug the heartstrings, it was great to see Damir Martin, one of the best and unluckiest single scullers not to claim Olympic gold, winning his first crew medal – a bronze – since 2013 with a new Croatian quad. His posse of young scullers pulled him over the line in third behind the Germans and Dutch after battling through the trailing crews. “They have awakened the crazy beast in me, these guys,” he explained. “I hope I don’t stop them, but mentor them.” Unsurprisingly Martin calls race plays for the crew, who trust him implicitly. “They believe in me that I know what I am doing, and I believe in them that they won’t leave me alone on the course.”
Ahead of them in the M4x final the Dutch had been leading until, 11 strokes before the line, they caught a nasty half-crab and faltered, letting through Germany, who had been catching up fast since the 500m to go bridge, to win by 0.16 seconds. And it wasn’t the only unexpected Netherlands blunder: the Dutch men’s four had sputtered and hesitated in similar fashion with three strokes to go, letting an ecstatic France through to M4- silver at the last minute. “As we went across the line I thought we were still third,” said French 3-seat Florian Ludwig. “And when I asked my coach Antonio Maurogiovanni on the side, he told me we were second, I couldn’t believe it.”
The victory ahead of this sudden fiasco was claimed by Britain’s 2025 world champion quartet with ease, while the women’s fours went to the Dutch half a second ahead of Australia with the Kiwis third. “It went even better than planned, to be honest,” said British bow Daniel Graham. “Going into it we’d been like, this is going to be an absolute ‘get everything out of ourselves to the line’, and then finding ourselves in a good position at halfway gave us the confidence to push on more.” And how are they coping with the pressure of being defending champions? “I think it makes everything even more special,” said GBR 3-seat Douwe de Graaf. “Stiff competition, it’s very exciting.”
The German quad’s close triumph wasn’t even the tightest margin of the day: Lauren Henry (GBR) had to belt it to rate 46 near the line to put one over on Viktorija Senkute (LTU) in the women’s singles by 0.14 seconds, after Henry’s trademark mid-race push didn’t quite work well enough on the Lithuanian despite taking apart Fiona Murtagh (IRL) and Roos de Jong (NED). The two diminutive top medallists agreed afterwards that small but mighty scullers had a lot to show the rest of the rowing world, and thoroughly enjoyed the racing.
“I’m no longer chasing anything,” said Senkute. “I’m just enjoying my rowing and going fast. It’s just my second senior medal.” Henry was also very cheerful, nailing her colours to the wall in her first race since losing to Murtagh at last year’s worlds. “The rate was just going up and up and up, my coach said ‘don’t shorten up’ but I think I did shorten too much. But it worked, so, yeah! [Last year’s result] has been a big driver, on them hard days, on the days when I’m tired.”
It turns out that Henry’s 2025 worlds silver was in fact a surprisingly good result given some unexpected circumstances. “I got heat stroke on our world championships training camp, and so I didn’t really get any rowing practice done, I was paddling about but not racing, it was like flicking a switch [off]. I was really pleased actually to get to Shanghai in the form I was in.”
Australia pulled a blinder to win the women’s eights, making several squads reassess their speed, while the fabulous 2025 world champion Dutch men’s eight, back with just one change, repeated their dominance. “It’s just so great,” said cox Jonna de Vries (NED). “Winning last year and then winning again today at the start of the season. You never know what’s going to happen.” This all despite a coxbox malfunction halfway down the course which left most of her crew unable to hear her. “The boys just took over the calls,” she said. “They had a process, expected the process, heads in the game and they executed it really well. We crossed the finish line and I was ‘you don’t need me, I’ll go home!’.”
Behind the Dutch M8+ Great Britain and Romania were mainly glad to race well in the sweltering heat, and to have closed the gap a little. “We were a bit disappointed how the race for lanes went,” said GBR bowman Matt Aldridge, “but we took the race on today against a very fast Dutch crew. We have struggled in the past on our start so we really went for it this time, which is good.”
The doubles races were superb: not mega-close, but demonstrations of ability by some very talented rowers. Simona Radis and Ancuta Bodnar added yet another world cup gold to their tally in the W2x, comfortably passing the Dutch in the third quarter after a leisurely start. It’s hard to remember that this duo are still under 30 years old, because they have terrorised the women’s doubles for the best part of the last 10 years. Behind second-placed Netherlands, Irish duo Margaret Cremen and Zoe Hyde were delighted to have taken bronze only 3.44 seconds off two ultra-fast crews, after seventh in the world last year.
“I think we raced better than the rest of the weekend,” said Dutch bow Lisa Bruijnincx, “so we definitely took it up a notch. It was our first racing weekend in the double sculls, so silver is an incredible achievement.” Bruijnincx and her partner Tessa Dullemans raced together in the quad previously, but three rounds of racing in a slower boat is a new experience for the duo. “Great day,” said Hyde, picking up Ireland’s only Olympic-class medal of the weekend. “We’ve been working really hard with the coaches to go to the next level, so today gives us the confidence that we can be ok.” “It’s so tight [in the W2x],” added Cremens. “You just have to work to get up to speed and then on any course it’s anyone’s game.”
The men’s doubles was a demonstration of what two highly experienced single scullers, Melvin Twellaar and Simon van Dorp, can do when they put right the errors of their semi-final. Last year they slugged it out in the singles most of the season: this time they plan to return to singles for Lucerne before likely joining up again in the double for the later part of the season. Leading from gun to tape their victory appeared never in serious doubt, though the race closed up to them as Belgium’s last-minute dash to the line surprised the Serbian duo and snatched silver.
“We were a bit frantic yesterday,” said van Dorp, “and we’re both quite aggressive scullers, which is really fun but you want to keep the aggression and tone it down a bit more. We were trying to get more length in the stroke, a bit more calmness in the first thousand and then be able to step it up more in the second.” “It’s been a good journey,” added Twellaar. “We get along really well, very similar approach, just slightly different strokes which we need to work on. We can be very proud of what we did.”
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Drag
Another set of world champions who now have serious targets on their backs were Kiwi men’s pair Oliver Welch and Ben Taylor. After claiming their 2025 title by a smidge short of five seconds, it was a different story this year as a stronger Romanian pair halved that gap, and Lithuania’s Stankunas brothers picked up a welcome bronze. The women’s pairs was won by Czechs Anna Santruckova and Pavlina Flamikova, who held off the French for an ecstatic victory, their first gold medal.
So what else did we learn? Several big names are back and solidly on form, whilst a few new faces might be joining the top level if all goes well. The Dutch are quick (seven medals from eight Olympic-class finals) but in some events the Germans, Brits or Romanians are quicker, yet many events had interestingly tight finishes with a variety of players. Belgium’s tiny squad claimed two medals and were competitive on speed against multiple known talents.
“awakened the crazy beast in me”
Damir Martin
Along with these insights, most teams look likely to swerve the second world cup in Plovdiv (a combination of likely heat and distance for the boat trailers to travel), and many racers are thinking about high rate and sprints earlier in the season than they have before. Hardly anyone doubled up – which was to be expected in a hot venue – but it appears likely that in the better-performing Dutch squad crews may keep their line-ups static, a reverse of their recent tactics of multiple doubling and multiple crew changes across the early season.
