This year’s European championships, held at the perennially popular venue of Varese, have a slightly subdued air, despite formidably serious racing on Friday as the opening heats took to the lake. A long-held para-rowing rivalry started its next chapter, the men’s doubles lived up to its reputation for some of the best racing around, and a women’s eight went quicker than any has ever done before, in a preliminary race.
Photo The Romanian women’s eight set a new European championship best time of 5:49.79
How to Watch the European Championships
The slight reduction in excitement is partly because the Varese set-up is one of the most relaxed and laid-back anywhere in the world, with a tiny footprint and very little formality. Athletes and spectators mix easily, and the small grandstand was enlivened during Friday’s sessions by a high-pitched beeping horn which seems to be supporting lots of different crews.
Although there are only six fewer entries than in 2025, a surprisingly small reduction given that the world championships start only 21 days after this event ends, there are some big names missing. The Dutch, as world hosts, have sent only a handful of development crews, in lieu of their senior team, whilst Ireland are missing the party entirely. This particularly dents the fun in the women’s singles, which is therefore missing the defending Olympic and world champions.
Photo ITA M8+
The British men are also busy preparing for Amsterdam at their annual altitude base in Silvretta, which along with the lack of the Netherlands eight has turned the men’s eights into a more lacklustre straight final. Like the Dutch some British development men’s crews have been sent for their senior debuts, but not an eight.
The first big moment of the morning came in the PR1 men’s singles heats. World and Paralympic champion Ben Pritchard (GBR) opened the bidding by being close to world best time speed for the first half, before dawdling home languidly in the heat haze. So former rival Giacomo Perini, the Italian who has had a quiet year while he finishes his political science degree, banged out a race five seconds quicker – within two seconds of the mark set by Ukraine’s Roman Polianskyi here three years ago.
2026 European Rowing Championships
Perini, who was a bit lacklustre in 2025, looks back to his best on home water, though the Italian certainly had to work harder than Pritchard with Polianskyi himself, also attending his first event of the 2026 season, breathing fire behind him for most of the course. The final on Sunday will be a lot spicier. This was followed shortly afterwards by Kathrin Marchand and Valentin Luz (GER PR3 Mx2x) storming to a time of 6:57.52, which is only 0.11 seconds outside the quickest time ever set for that event, by them last year in Plovdiv, and a full second inside the overall world best time they also set last year, in Shanghai. We should point out that nowadays, in a change to the previous system, continental championships (not officially hosted by World Rowing) which set quicker times than in WR events, are not logged as world bests.
Photo GBR W1x
Some events were reasonably predictable: the absence of Fiona Murtagh (IRL) and Karolien Florijn (the latter busy on Dutch training and also recuperating from back trouble) made it a given that Lauren Henry would be untroubled in her W1x heat. The Briton keeps threatening to do something about Rumyana Neykova’s 24-year-old record, but here stayed calm and cautious in what was at the time full sunshine, whilst the other heat winners, Jovana Arsic (SRB) and Viktorija Senkute (LTU) were pressed a little harder but not by much.
They and the men’s singles are the only events with semis to race on Saturday, so in similar fashion Yauheni Zalaty (AIN) and Olli Zeidler (GER) qualified with straightforward wins, whilst Kai Schaetzle (SUI), a new recruit to the single this season with the men’s quad prioritised, did a beautiful job beating Stefanos Ntouskos (GRE) to the third heat victory. Zalaty’s win came at the expense of Norway’s Jonas Slettermark Juel, who was missing mentor Olaf Tufte’s funeral (broadcast live on Norwegian TV about an hour later) for the regatta, but still had a keen bunch of supporters at the lake edge.
Photo CRO M2x
Romania, absent from Lucerne while training for this, which is one of the highlights of their season, stamped their authority on the women’s pairs, men’s pairs and men’s fours. Their two eights had no trouble leading home the preliminary races for their straight finals, and in both events are likely to be two-horse races. Britain’s women chased Romania so hard they opened up a 30-second gap to Germany and Italy, whilst the German men held Romania to account by a margin of two seconds: not enough to show them who’s boss yet, but a good augur for Sunday’s real deal.
Sadly the amazing Ancuta Bodnar is absent, hence the notable lack of a Romanian women’s double, but the indefatigable Simona Radis is having some fun in the women’s pairs and eights instead, this time partnered with Adriana Adam. The duo could probably have broken at least the European W2- best time and possibly also the world best if they’d not dropped to a stroll (rate 32-30) in the second half: as it was they came within six and seven seconds of the two marks without being pushed. In the eight they posted a new European championship best time of 5:49,79, faster than the world best time set at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021. Let’s hope for a continuing tailwind into Sunday.
2026 European Rowing Championships
Having no Romanian superstars didn’t mean the W2x event in Varese was under-par, far from it. Belarussian athletes Lena Furman and Tatsiana Klimovich, still racing as AIN since that rule won’t change in World Rowing until 2027 at the earliest, did a number on Lithuania’s latest combination whilst Dimitra Kontou and Evangelia Anastasiadou were entirely in control of Germany in the other heat at one of their favourite regattas. It’s incredible to think that Kontou is still aged 20, having reached her first senior worlds final at the age of 17 and won an Olympic bronze before her 19th birthday. Whoever wins here will have to face the Romanians as well as strong competition from the big non-European teams, but it should still be a fight to savour.
The men’s doubles more or less bookended the day, kicking off with three incredibly close morning heats to select the top twelve crews, and finishing a hot and windy hour of afternoon racing with two near-photofinish semi-finals. The early races were dominated by Romania and Serbia, though there was a nice little battle between Belgium and Croatia, which the Belgians won by about a metre, in the third heat. Later on we had two four-boat blanket semi-final finishes in both of which it was impossible to guess the outcome until the last stroke.
Photo GRE W2x
First the Czechs made a late and massive charge to push past Romania in the semi-final one. A clever move but one which they may never be able to use again. At this point Belgium sadly came a cropper, relegated to the B-final by 0.09 seconds due to Italy’s serious sprint, closing right up on the two leading crews. That was followed by the last race of the whole day, a thriller in which the Sinkovic brothers (CRO), looking better than they have for most of this summer, led out ahead of Spain but then fell prey to a blistering finish by the chasing pack. Serbia thundered through for the win and the centre lane in Sunday’s race for gold, but Spain also caught the floundering Sinkovics, leaving the AIN double out in the cold. We are starting to wonder when Valent and Martin Sinkovic might think it’s time to put their old Croatian quad back together, since it might be more of an option for them than these smaller boats.
The men’s quads did feature Croatia, who initially led and then eventually won their heat, but only after having to survive a phenomenal five-boat squabble in which 1.4 seconds covered all the crews at the line. Ukraine were the unlucky ones to miss out, Germany, Czechia and the Dutch development boys nipping them to the line behind Croatia which has as its experienced anchor the wily Damir Martin. By contrast the women’s quads was a quieter affair, Switzerland and Britain taking the first places ahead of Germany and Greece but with a sense that the big guns are not yet out. Here Britain has a sub on board, Becky Wilde in for Finnola Stratton who is temporarily out for purely precautionary reasons.
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Drag
Although the Dutch development crews had a difficult day, Britain can be proud of their men’s development openweight single and four, who finished second and first respectively in their heats. James Gare won the battle to finish directly behind Zeidler in the second M1x heat, and the debut four, which impressed at Henley Royal Regatta a month ago pushing the GBR world champion four very hard, managed a time close to that of the quickest outfit Romania, winning the second M4- heat.
Another GBR debutant, Ben Parsonage, also did well in a remarkably competitive LM1x event, taking a win of his own, this time over local favourite Luca Borgonovo (ITA). The GBR para-four this time is also a new combination, anchored by world champions Frankie Allen and Joshua O’Brien, but now featuring new cox Omar Al-Miqdadi and rowers Jonty Ridley and Charlotte Coburn, the latter getting her GB call-up because Giedre ‘G’ Rakauskaite is on maternity leave. She had a daughter recently, having already been pregnant whilst winning gold at last year’s world championships.
Photo AIN PR1 M1x
A more cross-style wind threatens on Saturday for the singles semis and the first half of the finals, the regatta having dropped to three days instead of the previous four as a result of losing repechages out of the progression system.
