Records continue to tumble and the first medals have been claimed on day three at the 2025 European Rowing Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Here are the highlights from today’s racing.

Photo POL M2x

Credit Benedict Tufnell

New order in the paras

The first gold medal of the European Championships was won by Ukraine, who featured in all three podiums in the para races. Anna Sheremet, 24, set a new European Championship best time of 9:56.60 in the PR1 women’s single sculls to claim her first international gold medal. Sheremet was unstoppable. She has been a consistent finalist in recent years and previously won a European silver and two bronze medals in this event.

It was a happy podium: Eva Mol’s silver medal is a first for both Mol and the Netherlands in this boat class, and Switzerland secured their first-ever para-rowing medal at the European Rowing Championships thanks to Claire Ghiringhelli’s efforts.

Photo PR1 W1x

Credit Benedict Tufnell

Paralympic champion Benjamin Pritchard repeated his dominant display from Friday’s heat to set a new world best time of 8:40.38 in the final.

“I’m the first ever British PR1 European champion. Full stop. And getting a world best time twice in a week – it’s all pretty special to go down in the history books for that,” said Pritchard. “This first year after a Games is a tricky time because you don’t know who’s coming through, you don’t know who’s coming back, and the temptation is just to rely on what you’ve done. But I felt it important to come out here and move that marker, so that LA doesn’t stagnate. We want the sport to keep going forward.”

Ukraine’s Roman Polianskyi, Tokyo Paralympic champion and former world best time holder, took second place ahead of Italy’s Giacomo Perini in third.

Germany’s new force in the PR3 Mix2x showed no signs of fading, they became the first crew in this boat class to go sub 7:00 with their new world best time of 6:57.41. Valentin Luz and Kathrin Marchland (GER) marched into an early lead and extended it through to the finish. Behind them it was another silver medal for Great Britain’s Paralympic silver medallists Sam Murray and Annie Caddick. Ukraine took bronze: one year after their impromptu podium proposal.

Romania perfect their pairs

Romania’s golden haul started with the pairs. Back to back Romanian wins coincided with two Italian silver medals, which did little to separate any sibling rivalry between brother and sister Giovanni and Alice Codato.

Italy’s Laura Meriano and Codato attacked early in the women’s pairs. They led Romania’s Simona Radis and Maria Rusu to halfway; both crews north of 40 strokes a minute and threatening the world best time set by Grace Prendergast and Kerri Williams in Tokyo. In the second half the power and rhythm of Romania prevailed.

Radis and Rusu set a new European Championship best time (6:49.18) a length ahead of Meriano and Codato, who claimed their nation’s first silver medal in this event. Great Britain’s Eleanor Brinkhoff and Megan Slabbert won bronze.

“We’ve had a bit of a bumpy ride, but managed to find some speed in the last few weeks. I think we’ve surprised ourselves and possibly the coaches with our performance today! To get on the podium and have something around our necks shows the hard work that we’ve put in,” said Brinkoff.

Slabbert added: “It feels amazing to have our first senior podium experience in our first senior race. I’m looking forward to going out in the eight tomorrow to see if we can do it again!”

Paris Olympians Florin Arteni and Florin Sorin Lehaci showed class in the men’s pairs. A well judged effort in the tailwind saw the duo begin to fray at the seams on route to the European title. The Romanian men produced one of the quickest ever times in a men’s pair – a few seconds slower than the lofty bar set by New Zealand’s Eric Murray and Hamish Bond in London at the 2012 Olympics.

Arteni and Lehaci still set a new European Championship best time and were well clear of Italy’s Nunzio di Colandrea and Codato. Spanish Olympians Jaime Canalejo Pazos and Javier Garcia Ordonez rowed a canny race to cut through the fly-and-die Greeks. It’s the fourth time Pazos and Ordonez take home a men’s pair European bronze medal.

“It was a difficult race because of the wind and the waves,” said Ordonez. “We are a bronze medal, and we were racing Italy and Romania for the silver, we are here again.”

Spicy racing from the lightweight singles

Austrian Olympian Lara Tiefenthaler, who made her international debut as a junior in 2016, won her first ever gold medal and set a new European Championship best time (7:29.38) in the lightweight women’s sculls.

The 25-year-old sculler led from start to finish, but it was a tough watch for her fans as she fatigued in the final stages when the minor medals race ramped up.

Ireland’s Isobel Clements, who was second in the preliminary race, raced stroke for stroke with the Austrian in the first half but faded to fourth. At the finish there was just 0.03 seconds separating the Norwegian silver medallist Maia Emilie Lund and the fast-finishing reigning Under 23 European champion Mariia Zhovner (AIN).

When Lund spoke to Row360 after her race she was missing her medal. “It just fell in the water,” said Lund with only the ribbon around her neck. Does the water look clean enough dive in after it? “No, it doesn’t!”

2025 European Rowing Championships

Tongue out and head lulling, lightweight men’s sculler Fabio Kres went deep into the hurt locker to win Germany’s second gold medal of the day. It was a fantastically gutsy effort from Kres, who had considered retiring from elite competition last year when he moved cities. Luckily he didn’t!

Kudos goes to racemaker Halil Kaan Koroglu: Turkey’s 19-year-old sculling sensation. As Kres and Koroglu distanced the pack in the third quarter, the German sculler seemed to have the race under control, but as the finish beckoned the Turkish teenager ripped through Kres’ open water lead. Desperately determined, Kres responded well, and scrambled across line, winning by 0.39 seconds.

Behind them the 20-year-old neutral athlete, Mikita Karneyeu, won bronze ahead of Ireland’s Jacob McCarthy.

Deft doubles deliver shock result

The first of two gold medals for the Netherlands today came in the women’s double.

The two-time Dutch Olympian Roos de Jong has unfinished business in this boat class. She admitted to having mixed feelings after ditching the double in favour of the quad, one year out from the Olympics Games. In Paris she came agonisingly close to gold. Prior to today’s final, de Jong has reached the women’s double European championship podium four-times, but never the top step.

De Jong and Tessa Dullemans led from start to finish, keeping cool heads and clean strokes when the Greek Olympic bronze medallists Zoi Fitsiou and Dimitra Kontou launched a late and courageous charge.

“I think in the last 500m we were both thinking a lot about Paris actually, because it was a similar race then and we just lost the gold,” said de Jong. Dullemans added: “It was just ‘go, go, go’ because if it happens again, I don’t know what we’ll do…”

Gold then (finally) to de Jong and Dullemans who sidestep another heart breaking silver medal. One length back Romania won bronze.

“I guess we can say that lightweight and openweight are pretty much in the same time and space,” said Kontou. “We’re proud of the outcome, we came close, but we still got the silver medal home. The whole point was to see this season how we can compete against the openweight category, and I think we did really well.”

The first upset of the day came in the men’s double sculls. The bullish Romanian Olympic champions, who have blitzed this track every time they’ve raced it, misfired in the today’s final. Did they overrev the engine?

From the get-go Poland’s Olympic men’s quad bronze medallists Miroslaw Zietarski and Mateusz Biskup seized the opportunity. Andrei Sebastian Cornea and Marian Florian Enache (ROU) pressed the Poles in the final quarter but it was too little, too late.

At the finish Zietarski and Biskup celebrated shakily, both exuberant and exhausted.

Photo POL M2x

Credit Benedict Tufnell

“It was the most intensive race of my life,” said three-time Olympian Mateusz Biskup. “Right after the start we knew that we have to run as fast as we can, because we knew that Romania is very fast in the second 1000m. So we have to make the best position in the first 1000m for us.”

Ireland rowed through Italy to win bronze. Fintan McCarthy, the lightweight men’s double Olympic champion, and Konan Pazzaia proving a tricky combination for Italy’s ex-lightweights Niels Torre and Olympic silver medallist Gabriel Soares.

Dutch comeback and other fearless fours

Is there a sweeter way to win? The Dutchwomen were merciless in their deconstruction of the Romanian women’s four, rowing them down in the final 750m. It’s the second consecutive European silver medal for Romania in this boat class, who won European gold in 2023. Behind them Great Britain won bronze comfortably ahead of France, Italy, and Spain.

The Netherlands lowered their own European Championship best time which they set on the first day of racing to 6:19.6.

“We expected the Romanians to come up really quick, we kept really calm in the head as well. It was cool racing them, it was also really cool to pass them, and to stay in the boat as well with our minds, and doing it together,” said Dutch strokewoman Tinka Offereins.

Photo NED W4x

Credit Benedict Tufnell

Romania added a third gold medal to their tally courtesy of their men’s four. The new Croatian combination, with the Sinkovic brothers, Martin and Valent, in the stern pair, and the Loncaric brothers, Patrik and Anton, in the bows, made a positive start to their 2025 season. They challenged the established Romanian crew, who finished fifth in the Paris Olympics, all the way to the finish.

“It was a tough race with a very good field. Croatia is a very strong team, I competed with them in the men’s pair in the past. We respected our strategy. I kept my head in the boat and just followed the speed and nothing else from the outside,” said Romania’s strokeman Ciprian Tudosa. “The real training [for the Los Angeles Olympics] will start in January 2026.”

The Dutchmen could not repeat their women’s late charge, instead Finn Florijn and his teammates faded to fourth place 0.16 seconds behind France, who won bronze.

The remaining 2025 European Rowing Championships medals will be decided.

2025 European Rowing Championships