World Rowing Cup II in Plovdiv will look almost nothing like the season opener in Seville. The USA, Italy and China are set to make their first appearances of the 2026 campaign, while Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Ireland and Spain will all be absent from the Bulgarian regatta. Only four medal-winning crews from Seville will be on the start line.
The turnover is significant enough to make direct comparisons between the two regattas difficult. Seville produced a medal table topped by Germany, while the Netherlands led the World Cup points standings. Great Britain came away with five medals, including gold in the men’s four and Lauren Henry’s win in the women’s single sculls. France medalled in the men’s four. All four programmes are staying away from Plovdiv.
So the plot twists in Plovdiv will likely come from the newcomers. The USA, Italy and China are all significant Olympic programmes whose early-season form has yet to be tested internationally. Their first races will offer an initial read on crew selection, speed and racing tactics. (For the pedants among you: USA and Italy each had one sculler in Seville, Jamie Copus (USA) finished fifth in the LM1x, and the two-time Dutch Olympian Sophie Souwer (ITA), who switched allegiances last year and won the W1x C-final.)
For the nations returning from the season opener, the reshuffled field creates openings that did not exist two weeks ago. Crews that finished outside the medals in Spain could find themselves contesting finals with fewer of Seville’s dominant boats in the way. Whether those results carry weight deeper into the season is another question.
Here are some of our favourite events to keep an eye on.
How to Watch World Rowing Cup II
An All-American Showdown in the Men’s Single Sculls
A proper shootout, like a Western: two top US scullers go head-to-head in the men’s singles in Plovdiv. Paris Olympian Jacob Plihal aims to settle the score against ex-lightweight Samuel Melvin, who beat him in the US Trials in May.
Plihal started the 2025 season in the single before doubling up in the quad and eight in Lucerne. He closed out the season finale with a fourth place finish in the quad in Shanghai. Melvin, a newcomer to the openweight ranks made the jump last year, winning the C-final of the men’s double sculls at Worlds.
The US aren’t the only ones settling selection battles in Plovdiv. Of the 19 entries China, Korea, Romania, and Uzbekistan each have two men’s single sculls racing. Uzbekistan’s number one sculler is the former Russian athlete, Pavel Sorin, who returns to the World Rowing circuit for the first time in five years. Sorin’s last international appearance was at the 2021 Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, where he helped the Russian quad qualify for the delayed Tokyo Olympics. Sorin was later removed from the crew due to allegedly failing a drugs test.
Italy’s Gabriel Soares, who won silver in Paris in the lightweight men’s double sculls, will be a fierce competitor with legitimate podium ambitions. He made a strong start to his openweight career, after narrowly missing a European medal in 2025 he went on to win silver in the men’s double at World Cup II in Varese.
Romanian medal hopes rest with Paris Olympian Mihai Chiruta who finished towards the back of the B-final in Seville, but typically ranks higher; a former European medallist Chiruta placed seventh in Shanghai and Paris.
Other notable competitors include the Turkish youngster Cevdet Ege Mutlu, a current Under 23 world champion, and Brazil’s two-time Olympian Lucas Verthein Ferreira.
Opportunities Abound in the Women’s Single Sculls
The Netherlands, Ireland, and Great Britain have all swerved this regatta which means the respective Olympic, world, and European champions in the women’s single sculls are absent. So too are all the A-finalist from Shanghai and all bar one (Brazil’s Beatriz Tavares) of the B-finalist. It makes for an open field and offers world cup medal opportunities for those rarely in contention.
Standing out from the pack is the former W1x European champion Jovana Arsic. The 33-year-old Serbian returns to the single after spending last season racing in the women’s pair, where she made consecutive European and world championship A-finals. The two-time Olympian is a small boat specialist with a good line on gold.
Arguably Arsic’s main competition comes in the form of the American sculler Grace Joyce. A seven-time national team member, Joyce ranked third in the US National Selection Regatta in May. She made her Olympic debut in Paris, finishing ninth in the women’s quad sculls, and was a consistent performer in last year’s World Cup series in the women’s doubles.
Croatia’s Josipa Jurkovic is another boat class switcher. She makes her sculling debut after eight years racing with her twin sister, Ivana, mostly in the pair. And then there’s Czechia’s Alice Prokesova who will be hoping to refind her 2024 form, the year she won a European bronze medal.
Ukraine has two scullers competing in the women’s single sculls, Kateryna Dudchenko and Yevheniia Dovhodko. Typically, they race together in the Ukrainian women’s quad, which last year missed the European podium by the smallest of margins.
A reduced field might allow Tokyo Olympic silver medallist, Anna Prakaten, an opportunity to revive her flash-in-the-pan, post-pandemic form. The nation hopping Prakaten, who now represents Uzbekistan, spent most of the Paris Olympiad racing small finals. Last year, she finished ninth in the women’s double in Shanghai.
Prakatsen’s teammate, Anna Aksenova (UZB) makes her international debut, as does China’s Sixuan Wang, while the Moldovan sculler, Diana Plotean, steps up to the senior ranks for the first time having raced her single and mixed double at the Under 19 Europeans last year.
Can the Sinkovics shake their M2x Seville hangover?
Martin and Valent Sinkovic are one of only two M2x crews returning from the Seville start list, and they arrive needing to rebound. The Croatian brothers, owners of more than 50 international medals and four consecutive Olympic medals from 2012 to 2024 (gold at three of them), finished 13th overall in Seville and were relegated to the C-final. In their previous stint in the double across 2022 and 2023, they collected six World Rowing Cup and European gold medals plus a World Championships silver. That record makes their Seville result one of the main questions of the weekend.
The other returning crew, New Zealand’s Finlay Hamill and Benjamin Mason, were three places further back in Seville. Their 2025 form was stronger: bronze in Varese, silver in Lucerne, victory at Henley Royal Regatta, and eighth at the World Championships. Hamill also placed second in The Diamond Challenge Sculls after defeating multiple Olympic medallists along the way. With an extra fortnight in Europe to acclimatise, they should be closer to that level in Plovdiv.
Italy makes its 2026 World Cup debut with two crews and genuine depth. The top-seeded boat unites Niels Torre and Marco Selva. Torre, a former lightweight, placed fourth at the 2025 European Championships and won silver at World Rowing Cup Varese in his first heavyweight season before finishing tenth at the World Championships. Selva brings European titles in the Under 19 single (2023) and Under 23 single (2025). Both profiles point to A-final speed.
The second Italian entry, Leonardo Tedoldi and Maro Prati, adds pressure from behind. Prati is the 2025 Under 23 world and European champion in the double and the 2022 Under 19 world champion in the single. With Tedoldi, he placed eighth at Varese last year, a baseline they will surely aim to top in Plovdiv.
The United States also starts its World Cup season in Plovdiv. Cedar Cunningham debuted in 2025 and raced across the double, quad and eight, collecting a bronze in the quad at Lucerne and a fourth in the quad at the World Championships. James Wright returns to international racing for the first time since winning silver in the Under 23 eight in 2022. Both emerged from the US single sculls trials, Cunningham third and Wright fifth, before being combined for the double.
On the women’s side, none of the W2x A-finalists in Saville will feature in Plovdiv. The USA are strong contenders for a podium finish. Paris Olympian Kristi Wagner returns to international competition after starting a family. The 2024 World Cup II winner and former world championships medallist partners fellow Olympian Lauren O’Connor; it is a new combination but they previously competed against each other in the women’s doubles at the 2023 World Cup II and teamed up in the quad at the same event. Olympic talent also features in the crews from China, Italy and Austria, who will all have medal expectations.
Nifty Knifton Pair
American strength is found in the women’s pairs which is one of the few events that feature Seville medallists. Czechia’s Anna Santruckova and Pavlina Flamikova claimed gold two weeks ago, two seconds clear of the Chilean sisters and Seville bronze medallists Melita and Antonia Abraham. The Seville medallists will provide handy benchmarks for the newcomers.
The USA have entered two crews. Their top-seeded crew of Kaitlin Knifton and Teal Cohen are half of the women’s four world champions from Shanghai. Knifton and Cohen will have an eye on the podium, if not the gold medal. Internal competition comes from the Regina Salmons and Molly Bruggeman, who make their return to competition after finishing fifth in the W8+ Paris Olympics. No doubt the US coaches will be curious to see how their crews perform in the small boats.
On the men’s side Kiwi golden boys Oliver Welch and Benjamin Taylor will be hard to beat. But for a silver in Lucerne, beaten by the Romanians, the New Zealander had a near perfect 2025 season. The reigning world champions started this season by claiming gold in Seville, they’ll be looking to continue their run in Plovdiv. Italy, Croatia, and the two USA crews will be vying to upset the form book.
What Plovdiv Can Tell Us
The absence of so many leading European teams is not unusual in itself. Nations routinely rotate athletes through the World Cup circuit, using different stops for different boats or development squads. But the scale of the turnover is significant.
For the new arrivals, it will offer a first benchmark. For other crews, it will be a useful test in international racing, while several of the biggest questions from Seville will remain unanswered until the field reassembles later in the season.
