Eight months after losing her LW1x title and coming third behind Michelle Sechser (USA) and Dandan Pan (CHN) at the 2025 world championships, Kenia Lechuga Alanis soared to glory in the Seville heat, winning gold by 27 metres and dropping a bombshell in post-race interviews. “Next year I’m maybe going to be a heavyweight, I’m going to try for the Olympics,” she told Row360, the ‘maybe’ sounding rather redundant.
Photo Kenia Lechuga Alanis of Mexico
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She had already broken her own personal best, going 7:27.23 in sweltering conditions with a very slight tailcross-breeze, quicker than anything in training or previous racing. Now she plans one more lightweight year, and then up to openweight class. “I want to be the [lightweight] number one in the world rowing championships…. and then to [gain] maybe five more kilos,” she said. It’s not a crazy idea given that her times today, at her lighter weight, would have had her leading both W1x semi-finals to at least 1500m on a day when conditions barely changed.
The women of the W1x class may not welcome yet another doughty fighter in their midst as they run up to the LA Olympics in 2028 – a shorter than usual course, remember. Despite Karolien Florijn’s unexpected capsize on Friday, the women’s singles had two busy and fiercely contested semi-finals.
Photo GBR M4-
The first, boasting Lauren Henry (GBR) and 2025 world champion Fiona Murtagh (IRL) as well as Tara Rigney (AUS) went according to the rules of last year’s world cups, Henry blowing past the rest in the middle kilometer without mercy. The extra bonus was Frenchwoman Emma Lunatti leading early, being passed by Henry but then managing to shut the door on Murtagh to the line for second. The second semi was a dingdong battle between Viktorija Senkute (LTU) and Roos de Jong (NED), Germany’s Alexandra Foester trailing on their coat-tails, which only failed to be a dead heat because Senkute held her nerve under pressure to stay in front.
Florijn didn’t race at all on Saturday, her Friday DNF due to a combination of equipment failure and wash robbing her even of the chance of racing the C-final. She had discovered a problem with her footplate on the way to her heat start, and asked for tools or a delay so it could be fixed, but was rejected. This may have been because the Seville Guadalquivir canal has steeply sloping sides and very shallow edges some distance from the start bridge.
This pretty much makes it impossible for a coach to reach a crew trying to pull in, let alone fix equipment or give them or the ferry boat tools. And nowadays with no repechages, it’s more important than it used to be to hold all heats during the same racing block so that the times can fairly be compared. Florijn decided to see if she could race, and had been leading for the first minute but then at 400m gone she capsized, just as a small boat came past the race producing wash. An appeal was mounted on Friday afternoon by her federation but was turned down by World Rowing, so we will all have to wait until the next event to find out how Florijn does in direct contest with last year’s new stars.
Photo Karolien Florijn of the Netherlands
The morning was full of splendid semi-final racing, from rate-hungry Romanian W2x Ancuta Bodnar and Simona Radis jacking it up at the last gasp to grab the win from Ireland after trading the lead twice, to Melvin Twellaar and Simon van Dorp (NED) scuttling home in slightly cramped, flustered style a whisker ahead of Belgians Aaron Andries and Tibo Vyvey. Not quite the boat-moving fluidity we normally expect from these two expert Dutchmen.
Don’t be fooled by the first M1x semi-final times: Olympic champion Olli Zeidler (GER) was slowing down considerably as he crossed the line ahead of Norway’s Jonas Slettemark Juel, with Irish LM2x superstar Fintan McCarthy doing a solid job, but just missing out on A-final qualification behind Belgian Tristan Vandenbussche. The second semi was a tighter race, neutral athlete Yauheni Zalaty claiming the win after having to roll the rate up to stay ahead of Aleix Garcia I Pujolar (ESP) and Dovydas Nemeravicius (LTU).
Photo Fintan McCarthy of Ireland
The French women’s pair (Emma Cornelis and Hezekia Peron) were breakout stars last year, finishing a fabulous second at the worlds behind the ultra-experienced Romania. This time they played the long game, grinding away at Czechia and a different Romanian pair until they got their noses in front shortly before the line. There was nothing as interesting in the men’s pairs, though Romania’s Stefan Constantin Berariu and Florin Sorin Lehaci showed a clean pair of heels on time to 2025 world champions New Zealand.
To end the morning, a command performance was given: Britain’s reigning champion men’s four swiped a 27-metre lead from Romania before noodling down several pips to slide over the line in cruise control. The remaining three races of the morning were less suave and more convincing contests, the Dutch men’s quad just managing to outwit the Czechs, while the Polish M4x led all the way only to be balked by Romania. In the same race a resurgent Damir Martin, who is older than his current coach, anchored the Croatian quad to qualify for the final in third.
