Oliver Zeidler, Germany’s Olympic champion and reigning world champion, won his fifth Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta on Sunday, moving within one title of the event’s all-time record.
The victory places the 29-year-old in a group of six men to have won the regatta’s premier open single sculls event five or more times. The others are Mahé Drysdale, Stuart Mackenzie, Guy Nickalls, Jefferson Lowndes and Alexander Casamajor.
The Record in Sight
The record is six titles. Mackenzie, an Australian who won Olympic silver at Melbourne in 1956, claimed the Diamond Challenge Sculls in six consecutive years from 1957 to 1962. Drysdale of New Zealand matched that total when he won his sixth in 2018.
Zeidler’s path to six was delayed last year when New Zealand’s Finn Hamill beat him in the semi-final, a loss that came after Zeidler had done minimal training while completing MBA studies. The German returned to the international circuit in 2026 with a dominant win at World Rowing Cup I in Seville, then took Lucerne’s World Cup the weekend before Henley.
Henley Royal Regatta had pointed to the difficulty of Zeidler’s draw before racing got under way. Henley’s official draw report described Zeidler as beginning “his assault on a fifth Diamond Challenge Sculls title” and said his first race would be a testing one against Jelle Bakker of the Netherlands, the Under 23 world silver medallist.
The Pineapple Cup
The Diamond Challenge Sculls has been raced at Henley since 1850. Winners receive the silver-gilt Pineapple Cup, one of the regatta’s oldest trophies. Only a handful of scullers across 176 years have managed to dominate the event across multiple editions, given the depth of international fields and the unpredictable nature of side-by-side racing on the Thames.
Zeidler’s five titles have come amid a career that includes Olympic gold, world championship gold and, at one stage, a Concept2 indoor 2,000m world record of 5:34.7. He is coached by his father Heino Zeidler, a former junior world champion.
After Zeidler’s win, Henley 2027 could give him the chance to match Mackenzie and Drysdale’s six if he returns and wins again. Unlike Mackenzie’s unbroken streak, Zeidler’s run includes last year’s defeat, so the record he chases is six titles overall rather than six straight.
