Day two on Dianshan Lake dawned with higher temperatures and a muggy atmosphere ahead of expected thunderstorms on Tuesday. The rowing is starting to shake down, with the bigger teams showing ahead of the pack with more victories, encouraged by the need to avoid being shoved precipitously off the medal pathway.

Photo Benjamin Pritchard (GBR PR1 M1x) at the 2025 World Rowing Championships in Shanghai, China.

Credit Benedict Tufnell

The only two large teams who have qualified everyone so far are New Zealand and France (both six out of six), whilst Romania’s eight out of nine lead the way with four victories, two each day, which is probably due to their low number of retirements and consequently experienced squad. Their men’s double of Marian Enache and Andrei Cornea appears to be back to speed after a rough time in Lucerne, posting the quickest time ahead of Switzerland’s former lightweights in a crammed M2x field on Monday. Other highlights in the men’s doubles included the Poles, only a smidge slower than Romania, and Serbia’s duo of Martin Mackovic and Nikolaj Pimenov, who won in Lucerne and fronted up the third heat today.

What looked odd – but was perfectly legitimate – was three of the seven relegated M2x posting a quicker time than Niels Torre and Gabriel Soares, who qualified in second behind Ireland’s Fintan McCarthy and new partner Philip Doyle. Such an outcome has been very rare this season, and was an outlying artefact as a result of the Italians being a high-class crew (second in Varese) in an under-strength heat. Unchallenged, they were able to relax and slow by two seconds a split to take the second automatic spot and otherwise would likely have finished quicker than the Brits, Americans and Greeks.

On the numbers the British took the honours, qualifying ten out of eleven crews over the first two days, their men’s double the only misfire. They also notched up three more wins on Monday, all of which were the quickest times in their event. PR1 sculler Ben Pritchard snipping three seconds off Roman Polianskyi’s championships best time, though outside Pritchard’s own overall world best mark due to a feisty cross-headwind. Polianskyi was beaten in heat one by multiple world champion Erik Horrie, who is aiming to recover from a drought of season’s end golds since 2018. The bad news for both is that Pritchard was on course to beat the world’s best time until halfway.

The women’s PR1 singles gold may be cut and dried already, Anna Sheremet having swept through the field in the first few strokes to establish a cast-iron lead. The dominant oarswomen of the last decade, Birgit Skarstein and 2024 Paralympic champion Moran Samuel, have now retired, leaving the lake clear for 2025 European champion Sheremet, who breezed through her race. Closest to her were Sejeong Kim of South Korea and Chinese woman Shasha Shao, the latter new to international racing — but don’t count her out for that reason.

There is a lot of serious rowing in China nowadays, with fierce competition for squad places and a focus on the high-end All-China Games held quadrennially the year after the Olympics, in which elite athletes compete for their (huge, mostly 20+-million population each) provinces. This season those won’t be until November which is probably the only reason why the host country’s rowers are free to compete here: normally the Chinese national Games would take priority in a clash. Anyway, Shao will be well-trained at this level of racing despite her novice status with World Rowing.

China’s home-grown team will be relying on Chen Yunxia and Zhang Ling, the duo who came out of several very successful quads (including the 2020 Tokyo champion crew) this season to give the double a go, and promptly won the world cup making them favourites for the crown here. They dominated their heat and event on Monday, and will be hard to beat though crews such as France, Netherlands and Greece are likely to give them a very good run for their money. France’s Elodie Scaramozzino and Emma Lunatti in particular have been improving all season, part of the French revival after the pressure of hosting the Olympics with a weak squad.

The men’s fours served up vintage revenge, a completely redrafted Britain beating Australia to make up for losses in Varese and Lucerne earlier this summer. Along the way they also beat the Dutch and went quicker than other heat winners Romania, Lithuania and Croatia. The US, also partly revamped, came in second to Lithuania whilst the Loncaric/Sinkovic bus for Croatia beat France and Romania edged it over New Zealand.

Their female equivalents couldn’t quite duplicate that, beaten out by the USA who look to be the ones to catch in this smaller event than the men’s fours. For the women it was just one automatically through, with the US heat towing Britain and China along into qualifying, whilst for heat two the Dutch took a finals slot ahead of a slower group including the Aussie and Irish fours.

The singles were quality races, with two through to the semis for the women and two through to the quarterfinals for the men. The difference now is that anyone outside the top 24 has just one more race, an E final, with the exception of the slowest sculler, Malaysia’s Kheng Aik Ong. There were some fascinating battles and the quickest heat was that won by the eventual selection for the Netherlands, Simon van Dorp. He had the cosh over Stefanos Ntouskos (Greece) the whole way, despite Ntouskos’ valiant efforts, which helped both of them to a great performance. Ntouskos looked scared of not qualifying during the last 250m, but should not have worried: it was Poland’s Cezary Litka whose mega-sprint to the line was unnecessary, though he could hardly have known that he would qualify ten seconds ahead of the first drop-out.

In the other heats Zalaty Yauheni (Individual Neutral Athlete) did sprint a little to keep ahead of Hungary and Italy, but not by much, and Bruno Cetraro put in a storming run to stay at the front and beat Olli Zeidler’s time in the next heat by a sliver. The German Olympic champion was rather cruising, though not as much as van Dorp. The fifth heat winner was China’s Han Wei, although it has to be said the race was slower than the rest. There will be a big shake-out come the brutal quarter-finals, which we can expect to be raced the entire way since C- and D-final places will automatically be decided by the time order of those who don’t end up in the top three.

For the women there will be a new head for the crown, the reigning champion since 2022, Karolien Florijn, absent after a less rowing-orientated year. On paper it’s going to be a very tough fight between the unbeaten Lauren Henry (GBR), Ireland’s Fiona Murtagh, and Victorija Senkute (Lithuania), with Dane Frida Nielsen having a much easier race with less threatening opposition. However Henry was able to ease off by several seconds in the second half of her race, a bigger drop of pace than Senkute and Murtagh, who posted almost identical profiles, so the outcome may not be as obvious as it seems.

There are several new names in the women’s singles but it was good to see Alexandra Foester (Germany) back in the running half a second behind Senkute — without a sprint — after a rocky start to 2025 in the double. Foester has remarkable talent for her diminutive size, and never seems to be put off by opponents’ pedigree, so if this is the start of a genuine revival she could be a real threat to the early-season medallists and will make life very interesting for Henry.

Tuesday holds heats for the viciously competitive lightweight singles, and the first semi-finals — for the pairs and men’s quads —as well as some of the first minor finals. Thunderstorms are not expected to turn up until a little after racing, and well after the semis finish.

2025 World Rowing Championships