Day four at the 2025 World Rowing Championships, in Shanghai, China. The rowing world was all set for a good morning of racing on Wednesday, when one hour in, it ground to an abrupt halt. The first excuse given was that the Fairness Commission wanted to redraw the lanes due to a crosswind (though the flags on the boathouse seemed unable to decide which direction it was coming from). Forty-five minutes later there was another postponement, due to a problem with getting the new lanes programmed into the timing system, and the beleaguered M2x semi-final crews continued to paddle about to try and stay loose.
Eventually after yet another wait they were all sent home to get lunch and rest while the software was sorted out, and racing resumed at 4:30pm (in the original lanes) with the men’s doubles semis moved to Thursday as they had wasted a lot of effort staying race-ready at the start for nothing. World Rowing apologised “to all athletes affected by the delay in racing” and for the fairness changes taking “longer than anticipated”.
The highlight of the afternoon was the men’s fours ‘semifinal from hell’ technically involving 2023 world champions Britain and 2024 Olympic champions USA, though both of those are entirely different crews. Plus new-look brothers in arms Croatia, the emotional descendants of the ‘Oarsome Foursome’, Australia, and an untried but powerful and experienced Dutch quartet.
They got there because of the new no-rep byelaws, which for a field of nineteen pit the quickest heat winners against the slowest heat winners (GBR v CRO) and then add the first and fourth runners-up (AUS and USA) as well as the first and fourth of those qualifying on time (NED and UKR). Because the fastest heat had a huge gap to the non-qualifiers, the Brits, Dutch and Aussies were positively decelerating to the line, more than any other heat, so recorded times which probably didn’t reflect their true speed.
“It definitely wasn’t our best race, but life goes on”
Valent Sinkovic
Having been held for an hour’s delay at the start during the morning, when they did finally get under way it bore comparison with a herd of stampeding buffalo. First to break away were the Dutch, rapidly followed by the US, but the British settle was one of the best and by the first mark they had claimed the lead by a gnat’s whisker. What followed was a tit-for-tat argument between them and the Dutch for another few hundred metres before the British dropped the rate by another notch and lengthened their stroke, which made all the difference and confirmed the grasp they had on the race.
Meanwhile the USA had decided not to be psyched-out freshmen and stayed well in touch with the front runners, neatly holding a top-three place ahead of both the Australians and also the Sinkovic/Loncaric brothers’ crew (CRO). It wasn’t until the third quarter when a quiet surge from Australia which had begun a little earlier started to take hold, bringing them back into contention while the US and Croatia began to fade more rapidly. AUS stroke Alex Hill knows his business and was aware the main job was to reach the final, so kept the pressure up until he was sure they could claim the third finals place. It left the Yanks, who are doubling-up into their priority boat, the eights, accepting fourth ahead of Croatia and Ukraine.
“We struggled the whole training camp with togetherness, and the race showed that,” said Croatian stroke Valent Sinkovic, relegated to a minor final for the first time in an end-of-season competition since 2007. “Today it definitely wasn’t our best race, but life goes on.”
In the second semi-final a brilliant start from France put everyone on the back foot in the first thousand, before heat winners Lithuania got into power-cruise mode and started to carve their way through. For a while it looked as if the French would hold onto second with the Kiwis third but Romania finally unleashed their famous sprint in the last 200m which took them through into second. The French responded better than the New Zealanders which granted them a finals place by a mere one second, while the Stankunas siblings Domantas, Povilas and Dovydas claimed first with their crewmate Mantas Juskevicius.
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Drag
Day Four: 2025 World Rowing Championships in Pictures
Earlier in the day the PR2 mixed doubles and PR3 mixed fours had taken to the water for the first time in anger. Immediately it looks as if Paris silver medallists Shuang Li and Jijian Jiang will be the ones to beat. With two Paralympics under their belt the only person who has more experience than the Chinese is Frenchwoman Perle Bouge, who now has a new PR1-eligible partner with whom she finished third in the second heat. The European champions Jasmina Bier and Paul Umbach (GER) won the second heat comfortably enough to think they may have a gear in reserve with which to challenge China.
The PR3 coxed fours were led home by Paralympic champions Great Britain, a crew with one change since Paris — the three-times BM8+ champion cox Tom Bryce — but still hell-bent on racing themselves if nobody else can challenge them. They duly ‘raced the ghost’ all the way to finish nearly twenty seconds quicker than anyone else in the event while behind them Italy scrapped with Germany to shut out Spain. The other heat was more of a bunfight, the USA starting slowly but catching up well in the middle thousand and eventually surging through both China and Brazil to claim the win, Canada languishing at the back for the whole race. Barring accidents it is very hard to see who could beat the British winning streak but the minor medals could go to any of the USA, China and Italy on the day.
