Tuesday of the World Rowing Championships was rescheduled to hold races earlier, to avoid an expected fierce wind which didn’t really materialise. There was a ten minute period of brisk gusts late afternoon, but though the wind level wavered up and down across the course and the whole racing period, it was easily rowable throughout the day and several of the eights stuck in good training sessions on calm water when racing was done.
The fours and quads on Tuesday drew a livelier crowd in the VIP grandstand at least, and plenty of locals, who had a pile of Dutch successes to cheer about with wins in both coxless fours, the women’s quad and their stellar Twellaar-van Dorp double, though the men’s quad were bilked of victory by a storming USA quartet.
Doubles trouble
Let’s deal with the men’s doubles first. The wind dropped for their programme-ending quarter-finals, leaving three M2x crews — Czech, Dutch and German — with the quickest times of any races so far this week when judged against predicted gold-medal times. But that didn’t include Croatia: the Sinkovics came third behind Serbia and Belgium in the first quarter-final, recording the slowest time of the 12 crews who qualified for the semis.
Deliberate or not? A good question, but probably answered by the fact that they went through the whole race at a pretty steady 35, rather than dropping to a relative dawdle as the two crews ahead of them did. It was only 21 hours since they had won a blistering heat at full throttle, so no wonder their 38- and 36-year-old legs had less snap in them. Along with the rest who got through to the semi-finals, they will race for a third day in a row on Wednesday afternoon.
That elite company includes the three super-fast doubles already mentioned, along with Britain’s Matt Haywood and Josh Knight. They replicated their confident heat win with a tidy victory in the last race of the day, disposing of Spain, who claimed second ahead of Italy. Earlier, Czechia claimed a largely uncontested win after trading blows with Germany for most of the course, losing the lead in the third quarter before regaining it for the final 100-odd metres.
The most acclaimed quarter-final was naturally number two, featuring Melvin Twellaar and Simon van Dorp (NED), who have deliberately spent a good chunk of the season in singles to keep one another up to scratch before returning, as planned, to the double in which they won in Seville. Having shaken off New Zealand’s Finlay Hamill and Ben Mason for the second half of the race, the laid-back Dutchmen started hearing the crowds cheer for them before the last minute of the race started, and were able to cruise home at 30 for the last few strokes. New Zealand copied them until Portugal’s uncowed Pedro Rodrigues and Tomas Neves, this year’s under-23 champions, dashed up and forced the Kiwis to hoick their rate again to hold the second qualifying spot. France, with Valentin Onfroy substituting for Hugo Boucheron who was withdrawn before the start of racing, lost out on fourth place and a prime lane in the C-final to Moldova’s cheeky last-ditch sprint.
Para-crews deliver quality
The morning opened with para-double and para-four heats, PR2 and PR3 respectively. While the two PR2 Mix2x heats were won by the form crews — 2025 world champions China and runners-up Germany, the newly crowned European champions — it was Uzbekistan’s improvement that impressed. Mukhayyo Abdusattorova and Diyorkbek Boybolsinov, at 21 apiece the youngest crew in the competition, were third-last at the 2025 worlds but have improved to the point where they can hold their own with the best.
They led out heat two of the mixed doubles, and despite relinquishing the lead soon after the first timing point, kept close to Germany and finished only a few seconds behind them as the second quickest of the field. Israel also impressed, dogging China’s footsteps for ages during heat 1 and making them work for their win right to the line.
In the mixed fours later on France tried the same trick on the British four, still nursing a lengthy streak for the team over more than a decade, but couldn’t get a rise out of the British, who kept a lid on both effort and rate ahead of what may be a feisty final against the USA on Thursday. The Yanks beating Italy in heat one went quicker than the recently-minted GBR European champions both in the first 500 metres and overall. And the Brits have had three changes in the boat since their last world title: it is a tricky moment for a crew under the weight of so much expectation.
But since USA and GBR have not yet met one another this year due to different racing schedules, it’s tricky to tell how much each still has up their sleeves for the final. The other two qualifiers were Australia and Germany, the latter beneficiaries of the new qualification rules which gave them a slot because they tried their hardest to pass France and as a result went quickly enough to beat other back markers in heat one.
Coxless fours in cruise control
The women’s fours were relatively uneventful in the end, though the Dutch, being the first home winners of the day, got a roar to shake the grandstands as they zoomed to the line leading GBR and the individual neutral athlete crew by several lengths. The US had a similar race in heat three, well clear of Ireland and Italy who did a neat job to get ahead of Germany at halfway. The Aussies had the closest race officially, but even they were seven seconds free of Romania, who seemed to have decided to take it a little easier ahead of doubling up in the eight. The slowest crew, and only one eliminated from the semi-finals, was Poland.
After sedate quality came a spicier flurry of men’s racing, the M4- boasting much overlapping at the end (sometimes due to crafty coasting), and a near-photofinish in each of heats two and three. Britain’s undefeated GBR four opened the bidding, swanning their way down the course after getting through early leaders Italy and holding off challengers Australia with a relentlessly controlled rate-36 march. It looked more like a rate-limited training piece than a race, to be honest, and with what came next it will be interesting to see if they can keep their cool under more pressure.
The second heat was the USA’s party, a foursome rebuilt from several world cup season crews but with plenty of medal experience. They controlled the whole battle despite China having a big go at them several times early in the race, and only losing heart when France came up to take their turn. As the line approached and China faded New Zealand decided to join the melée and levelled the French, getting past them and challenging the USA (who barely noticed) in the last hundred metres. Eventful and the quickest race of the grouping.
By contrast the third heat was slower and less interesting, Romania, runners-up to the British in Lucerne and Varese this summer, set off confidently but after 600m of effort lost a tiff with the Dutch who seized the momentum and advantage and from then on led to the line. And it was Germany who barged up in the second thousand, clearing through Romania to press the Dutch a little but too late to claim a win. All of which leaves the British and Americans — and their supporters — savouring a neat match-up in Thursday’s semi-final, which could turn out to be nearly as important as the medal race on Saturday.
Swiss quad soaring still but Dutch drum up a noisy victory
After the relatively surprising triumph of Switzerland’s women’s quad in Varese three weeks ago at the Europeans, it was good to see their form continue with a well-judged heat. China were playing the fly-and-die card, going slower in each quarter, and Switzerland didn’t have much trouble picking them off. So all was going well until the US, who had been creeping slowly closer in the second thousand, started to make an impact with their excellent boat run. Closing right up as the buoys changed colour they forced the Swiss hand, pushing them to pull out another gear briefly to confirm the win.
The other two heats were more predictable, Britain seizing the first victory of the event by toughing it out against Romania for a while then pulling away, and in the second heat the Dutch held their nerve against multiple challenges from France before they could cruise away for an enthusiastically-received win. This was the quickest women’s crew of the day (against gold medal predicted times) and only 0.1% behind the Czech men’s double. The event form is complicated by very few of the crews having been at the same regattas this summer, and whilst the British defeated the Dutch defending champions (3 out of 4 athletes) the only time they met, at Lucerne, the Swiss must be seen as a wild card, as are the Americans, and home advantage is going to be a noisily important factor this week.
Italians back in charge
The men’s quads’ form has been turned upside down by whatever happened to the Italians, last year’s world champions, in Varese. Set up as the saviour crew at a home Europeans, they flaked out in their opening heat and didn’t summon enough speed to qualify for the medal race, being relegated to the C-final. When two of the crew then reported ill that made sense, but means that six of the crews entered in Amsterdam have won gold or silver at least once this year. So, with four quarterfinals and only two from each race guaranteed places in the semi-finals,it was going to be tight.
It should therefore surprise nobody that Italy, who as the runners-up to the previous Dutch quad in Paris 2024 and last year’s champions are self-anointed favourites, were on storming form. They were never touched, although China briefly had a try, and their lowest rate across the whole performance was 39. Booked, one semi-finals spot, without difficulty. Slightly slower than them were the Germans, who thundered down the course to win heat 2 after despatching Poland, then held off a creditably strong Australia.
Croatia’s new quad won heat 4, thanks to Damir Martin who is doing a great job bringing on a trio of youngsters, ahead of the Brits who are a tweaked version of the 2025 world silver medallists, and who had quite a struggle against Estonia for a while before putting in a good last quarter and closing on Croatia. But the best heat came from a four-way wrangle between the USA, Ukraine, AIN athletes and Dutch, who were never separated by more than 1.5 seconds before halfway. At this point Ukraine dropped back and the other three chased one another to the line, USA winning the sprint 0.77 seconds ahead of the Dutch. A great finale to the Olympic-class heats for the day.
Lightweight doubles jeopardy
The lightweight doubles are pale shadows of their former brilliant selves, but the countries contesting these rather sidelined golds put on a good show in early afternoon. The lightweight women’s double ‘heat’ was a mere preliminary, 2025 runners-up Tunisia winning it but ahead of a dangerous Greek crew who know their job and were likely keeping their powder dry. But the men’s races were cracking, Uzbekistan’s impressively-improving duo taking the first heat ahead of a ding-dong battle between the USA and Azerbaijan, won by the USA only a few feet ahead of AZE. Even better was the second heat, led serenely by a safe Germany, who watched a superb clash of lightweights unfold behind them. The Dutch had been in second for much of the lake before Brazil’s new crew in this event edged the locals out by a photofinish and 0.01 seconds, earning themselves a big “ooh” from the crowd as well as a decent lane in the final. The Dutch qualified for the medal race of course, and will have a good chance of reaching the podium, unlike Azerbaijan who were edged into the B-final in the other race.
