Welcome to the 2026 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam and a return to the Bosbaan, the venue for the championships in 2014. The last time the venue held the championships was similarly two years before an Olympics, the excellent and friendly Dutch organisation outweighing coaching worries about the famous Bosbaan swirly wind. It’s a very pleasant course. Laid-back, amicable volunteers and enthusiastic spectators; a restaurant perched on the mound above the spacious boathouse built into the bank; a week of cooler but still mild weather after the sweltering summer Europe has suffered. What’s not to like, apart from mean and nasty crosswinds?
And, action!
Six events burst into life on day one of racing, the lightweight singles opening the batting before handing over to pairs and doubles. The wind mostly played ball but was more head than anything else, which at least stopped the World Rowing Fairness Commission fretting about lane draws. But it did swing up and down in strength, though fortunately not when the scullers took to the water. The highest-profile lightweight woman currently competing is Mexico’s Kenia Lechuga, but over a dynamic season two AIN scullers have emerged as big threats: Mariia Zhovner picked up the European title earlier this month, with Valeryia Shendzel, the 2025 under-23 champion, only a short way behind her in fourth.
This time the joker in the pack was Dutchwoman Femke van de Vliet, who had taken bronze and then silver in the two world cups (I and III) in which Lechuga had been unbeaten this summer. She stopped the AIN scullers making a sweep of their two races by beating Shendzel into second by a solid eight seconds, although Zhovner beat both van de Vliet’s and Lechuga’s times by a similar margin to make herself an early favourite.
First photofinish of the regatta
By contrast, the top three lightweight men were within two-thirds of a second of one another, with a brilliant race in the first heat reminding everyone how to race in the post-repechage era. To the beep and past it, is the answer, at least if you aren’t one of those able to cruise a little in the automatic qualifying spots. Fabio Kress (GER) had led out, but a thrilling tussle between Lechuga’s team-mate Alexis Lopez Garcia and Ghait Khadri (TUN) behind him meant the German’s lead didn’t survive 650 metres gone, which is when Lopez Garcia matched and then passed him. All seemed put to bed until Kress and Khadri engaged in another massive tussle for the last 50 metres, needing a photofinish to separate them at the line and making the Mexican sprint briefly. Which at least ensured he ended with the quickest time of the event, half a second up on Kress.
The others who qualified directly were last year’s champion Felipe Kluver Ferreira (URU), who’s been playing around in the openweight crew sculling categories this summer; Konrad Hultsch (AUT); Petros Gkaidatzis (GRE); and Santino Menin (ARG). The Greek and Uruguayan led from beep to beep. Both will have to up their game to deal with the heat 1 stars, including Khadri (third) and Dutch sculler Cornelus Palsma (fourth) who illustrated the benefits of trying hard in the opening round by both qualifying in the top five over all three races. It was definitely not a day to make mistakes.
Stars sweeping superbly
Fortunately there were no errors on show amongst the top names in the women’s pairs, finally all back together after the European championships interrupted their battles. Heat winners were Romania (naturally), the USA’s new Lucerne-conquering combo, and the Abraham sisters from Chile (equally unsurprising after heat wins and medals in all three world cups). Those margins were comfortable enough for those three not to feel too threatened.
France’s Emma Cornelis and Hezekia Peron were probably unlucky to draw the USA but rallied well to hold off Australia, the Lithuanians as usual looked very dangerous tracking Romania to the line, and the Czechs also clinched a solid spot albeit in the slowest heat. What looks most probable is that this speed order will shake up a lot in the semi-finals as all six of the leading crews have shown turns of speed recently and there are other class acts who qualified on time to join them.
Time to fool the competition
The men’s heat times across four races were led by Romania and Italy, but it did look as if this was largely because New Zealand’s Oliver Welch and Benjamin Taylor were giving themselves a relaxed ride. They were a chilled seven seconds quicker than Croatia’s Loncaric brothers, and didn’t win last year’s worlds by panicking.
Spain’s golden oldies Javier Garcia Ordonez and Jaime Canalejo Pazos, beaten at the settle by the AIN double and Australia, stalked the pair of them until they wore both down. They eventually passed race leaders Australia with less then 300 metres to go, before pulling away in a storming display of 34-year-old grit and cunning. Also hitting good speeds were Lithuania’s Stankunas brothers and the new GB combination of Fergus Woolnough and Matt Aldridge, runners-up to European medallists Italy and Romania respectively.
Greeks are out and Lithuania’s new combo impress
Women’s crew sculling has become very interesting lately, and this was no exception, though it was depressing to see Greece’s fabulous young stars Evangelia Anastasiadou and Dimitra Kontou relegated to the C-final after coming fifth in the quick second heat. They are better than that and usually punch well above their diminutive height. This time they were left behind when Lithuania seized the lead. Dovile Rimkute and Martyna Kazlauskaite, the latter a recent convert to coastal and beach sprints who joined Olympian Rimkute in Varese to claim bronze three weeks ago, looked compellingly in charge and ended up posting the quickest time of the event.
The other heat winners were Ireland’s Margaret Cremen and Zoe Hyde, on good form but slower than the other races, the British duo of Sarah McKay and Cameron Nyland, and the famously quick-witted Roos de Jong and Benthe Boonstra, ready to perform on home water, but pushed close by Switzerland.
Doubling down on M2x quality
The final series of the day was the men’s doubles, a feast of five races aiming to remove just two crews to the E-final, while the rest progressed to quarter-finals. However, the desperate need to bag good places ahead of what is widely expected to be a windy Tuesday afternoon led to some brilliant chases for lower positions in all except the second heat, which was won by a mile by Romania’s Olympic champions Andrei Cornea and Florian Enache, finally back properly in their Paris double together after some chopping and changing. The runners-up in that one were Finn Hamill and Ben Mason (NZL) but nearly 15 seconds back, which says a lot about how fast we thought the Romanians had been going.
Before that Britain had bossed the first heat, Josh Knight and Matt Haywood picking up their impressive Lucerne debut form again. And in heat three local lads Melvin Twellaar and Simon van Dorp, both superb single scullers, joined forces as had been planned all season, and cruising over the line at a very calm rate 32 after taking the lead at 550 metres gone. They got a huge welcome from the crowd and shortly afterwards Serbia similarly cruised through to beat Belgium, Martin Mackovic and Nikolaj Pimenov down at an even more leisurely 28 as they floated over the line.
And then we got to the last race, which turned out to be the battle of the old dogs. In the line-up the celebrated Sinkovic brothers (CRO), having some trouble this season proving that experience and cunning are a match for sheer raw youthful power. And in the French crew Valentin Onfroy, who last sculled internationally during a vain attempt to qualify a French quad for the Paris Olympics, bringing on his new young crewmate Yoann Lamiral, only three years a senior.
For several minutes the Sinkovics had it all their own way, speeding out of the blocks (rate 47, if you’re asking) and holding off France with steady persistence until Onfroy and Lamiral seemed to have lost heart, and overlap, by halfway. The Croatians eased off a touch whilst not under assault, but not for long. Pushed by the creeping insistence of Germany’s Oliver Holtz and Arno Gaus, France edged closer to Croatia again and then started to ride up through the gears, leaping to 39, 42 and finally 44 in their effort to grab the lead.
They fell short, but only by 0.6 seconds, and Martin and Valent Sinkovic can thank them for the motivation to post not only the quickest doubles time of the day, but also the most impressive gold medal time percentage of Monday, a rollicking 88.5% which, in the headwind and at an average age of 37, was remarkable. However, they’re going to have to do it again three more times to claim the gold they want.
Tuesday’s racing has been brought forward, starting at 13:05 local time so that they can be fitted in before what’s expected to be a lively afternoon wind. The championships venue is also bracing itself for a heavy dollop of rain forecast for Wednesday night, with organisers putting down duckboards to combat what is likely to become a sea of mud. Welcome to Amsterdam!
