Day four at the 2026 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam. Emotions spilled over at the Bosbaan on Thursday afternoon, as a ferocious early session of semi-finals was topped by the first medal races, which crowned new champions and saw history made several times.
Fifteen-year British winning streak cracked by USA
The most momentous winning streak in the last decade, that of the British para-four, came crashing down courtesy of a beautifully planned and executed final from the USA’s most successful quartet for many years. The Americans took the absent Brits’ place at the top of the podium in Lucerne this summer, and then stepped into their shoes with a steady stalking, culminating in a push rowing through the defending champions with less than a minute to go, well ahead of France bursting through Italy to take a startling bronze.
To be fair, adding another championship to a streak of 15 years and 59 consecutive races was always going to be a massive ask for this British four. They have three changes this year, with one retirement, one migration into non-para-rowing and multiple champion Giedre Rakauskaite taking a break from competition after giving birth to a daughter earlier this summer. The new quintet has only been together since June and doesn’t yet have the tools to combat the assault they faced on the Bosbaan. In flat conditions it was an exceptionally quick race — the USA had to go 99.3% of the world best time to beat the Brits, who themselves also rowed 99.0% of the Paris 2024 mark. There just weren’t the moves GBR needed to stay ahead when the crunch moment came.
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“I’m really proud, I’m really happy,” said Frankie Allen, after the crew collected their silver medals. “We’ve really not been together long for a combination, so I’m just proud of how we’ve managed to step on in the season after quite a tricky, slow start,” added Jonty Ridley. “To be here, even just racing, is good.” “Today wasn’t meant to be, but we’ll go away, work on it and come back next time,” said Allen.
“I’m always saying, as the US para-team, we always do a lot with a little,” said Skylar Dahl, the US two-seat. “Our momentum has been in the right place, we were incredibly internal, and we just had the most fun.” “This has been the goal every year I’ve been on the team,” said stroke Alex Flynn. “We’ve come so close before, and didn’t quite have that little one percent to get us to the line, and this time we had it. We talked about finding one hundredth of a second every practice, and those add up. They added up today.”
Lightweights brighten up the lake
The emotions ran high in general, because of the new Dutch plan to pinch the ‘parc fermé’ concept from Formula One and adapt it into an enlarged and prioritised ‘kiss and cry zone’ for family and friends. One of the first to experience it was lightweight star Kenia Lechuga (MEX) who came ashore to hugs from her best friends directly after beating AIN1 athlete Mariia Zhovner to a long-awaited world gold. Lechuga got close in 2023, with silver, but was behind the US and Chinese scullers last year in Shanghai, and this year needed to fulfil her potential with both of them no longer competing.
After shedding a few tears with her friends Lechuga came to the mix zone and nearly broke down there too. “I’m so happy, I’ve been working so hard,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I tried to do every stroke as perfect as possible. The pain, the legs, everything, but you keep rowing with your heart. I wanted to be world champion in the lightweight scull, so ‘tick’.” She confirmed that she is now planning to go openweight for the whole of the 2027 season in preparation for attempting to qualify the W1x for Mexico for a fourth consecutive Olympics.
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At the other end of the experience scale were a phenomenal pair of Greek youngsters who claimed their first senior silver worlds medal in the lightweight women’s doubles. The lightweight doubles races have become less widely interesting since their demise after Paris, but we have to spare some admiration for the Greek entry, 20-year-old Gavriela Lioliou and 17-year-old Paschalina Mouratidou. At bow Mouratidou may have pulled off a true first: winning medals at under-19 (LW1x) under-23 and senior levels in the same season, the last being under-23 LW2x gold and two LW2x silvers at European/world level with Lioliou.
It doesn’t stop there either, they are off to the Mediterranean Games soon and then the European under-23 championships later next month. “It was a nice race, we enjoyed it, tried our best, followed our plan, and we had a good result,” said Lioliou. They do plan to go openweight at some point, and with the current Greek W2x (also former lightweights) under the weather, might be just what the team needs. Kudos to canny coach Giovanni Postiglione, who is giving his youngsters plenty of high-pressure big championship experience by keeping them in the competitive but small lightweight events first.
A couple of races later their team-mate Petros Gkaidatzis took gold in the lightweight men’s single by defending an early lead against storming Uruguayan Felipe Kluver Ferreira. “After the first 500m when I started to move, I felt the boat just flowing,” the Greek sculler said. “And then from 1000 metres I knew I could win, I was grinning. Competing is from one part tough but also exciting so it was very good.” In between the two Greek successes Uzbekistan took their first ever senior world gold, leading the lightweight men’s doubles field the entire way up the course.
Revenge for Germany as para-rowing quality shines through
And the finals were completed by a very happy pair of Germans, Paul Umbach and Jasmina Bier, pulling off PR2 mixed doubles gold by ambushing the Chinese 2025 world champions at 1800 metres in fine style. “It’s amazing, two weeks ago we won the European championships, and to come back against the Chinese, the top of the world, it’s amazing,” said Umbach. “On the way up, on the warm-up it felt really good, so we knew we had it in us,” said Bier. “But you have to deliver and, well, in the end we did. In the last 50 metres I could actually see both [China and bronze medallists Israel], I kept looking a bit too much in fact.”
The heats for the men’s PR1 singles went to form, the three races won by world and Paralympic champion Ben Pritchard (GBR), former world champion Erik Horrie (AUS) and previous European champion Giacomo Perini (ITA). Another former champion, Roman Polianskyi (UKR) gave himself a rest by being content to stay second behind Pritchard: there was no point wasting his time trying to beat the Briton when they will hope to meet in the final. In the women’s PR1 singles Anna Sheremet (UKR) posted the quickest time beating Claire Ghiringhelli (SUI) by a full minute, while the other heat saw former able-bodied club rower turned para-rower Laurence Vandevyver (BEL) taking out Dutch competitor Eva Mol in her first World Rowing event.
Blistering semi-finals give hints of excitement to come
The women’s fours were the only semi-finals lacking the bite of competition, both led home by clear water, thanks to Australia and the USA. The Dutch were duffed up by the Aussies, who took a stranglehold on their race then kept the home crew at arms length. In a race where no positions changed after the first few strokes, Germany beat Ireland, also by clear water, to the third qualifying spot. The second semi was close to a repeat of the pattern, this time Britain dropping behind the USA before being overtaken by Romania for second. The Italians, AIN and New Zealand had a good fight but were never in contention.
However, in the men’s fours another British streak — albeit of only two years — came to an end as the GBR M4- lost for the first time since they formed early in 2025, and in their eleventh race as a unit. Outpaced to an unusual degree early on, they took a while to get through the field to challenge the US four, a new and speedy outfit sucked out of the men’s eight group of the last few years. Britain charged, but not early enough, and not for long enough, so it was no problem for the USA to match them and keep hold of the win, the centre lane in the final, and the initiative. The other win was a popular one for the Dutch, who were cheered home as they powerfully defended a good early lead from incursions by just about everyone, and finally a late charge from Germany. It was an unusually consistent race from the Germans, who popped in a rate-44 burst near the line to get back past China and close hard on the USA.
The Dutch have seesawed in and out of various W4x combinations in the last couple of years, but the current version is powerful enough to justify the tag of favourites at this year’s worlds. They delivered the best women’s quads time of the week by leading out with smooth confidence and never being put under any serious pressure. Britain, still a very new combination with Paris LW2x champion Imogen Grant at stroke and with Finnola Stratton only just back in after having to miss the European Championships, harried them from second place and managed to hold off Australia comfortable, while Ireland were never quite close enough to dream of qualifying.
In the second semi-final Romania looked confident but then fell prey to the USA, who had been quietly tracking them for 1300 metres, overtook and then bounded away for an impressive win. Germany, whose form has been erratic, were pleased to keep third ahead of Switzerland who had been ahead of them early on.
The men’s quads were both fascinating races, auguring well for a final in which it appears all six crews are capable of being within a second or two of one another. One race was livened up by the appearance of the best version of the British quad, putting out one of their most useful starts after a less successful heat, and then weathering the storm as the Czechs, Americans and Germans threw punches at one another on and off for the first 1000 metres. As Czechia dropped away the battle between the USA and Germany became even fiercer, and they closed on the leaders the Europeans won out, Germany ending runners-up only 0.21 seconds behind the Brits.
The other race was a beauty, Croatia, Poland and Italy sharing the lead in turns over the first half, before Italy’s confidence developed and they started to edge away. By this time the Dutch men had joined the party and after Croatia had a bad second 500, the local lads took over Italy-baiting duties and Poland managed to hold Australia, now in the mix, at bay. Still on a mission to regain their 2025 crown after some errors this season, Italy kept their heads and didn’t panic, controlling the race, which was much slower than the other semi, and beating the Dutch by a few feet with Poland third. It’s currently a toss-up between the men’s doubles and men’s quads which is going to be a tighter medal final.
Change is a good thing – sometimes
The verdict on the new innovations – the boat camera filming pointing upwards from the stern canvas on each shell doesn’t really work. The shot is similar for every crew and with the nearest athlete quite far away and with caps and/or sunspecs on, it doesn’t offer a new or varied perspective. Once you’ve seen it you don’t need to see it again.
On the parc fermé idea, it works well for less well-known crews, but we haven’t yet had a hyper-popular large boat with lots of people coming to see them, though it was a livelier area for the para-fours and that made for good TV. It does capture raw emotion but in a very haphazard way since the teams here aren’t yet used to covering it. We’ll see how that goes over the next few days.
