Nineteen countries return home with medals from the 2021 European Rowing Under 23 Championships

The fifth European Rowing U23 Championships held this weekend in Kruszwica, Poland featured entries from 30 European countries including Olympians and World U23 Champions from earlier this year. Having topped the medal table at the 2020 European Rowing U23 Championships, Italy was looking to maintain its position and arrived with a strong team having entered 16 of the 22 boat classes. It was clear that they were going to face tough opposition from Romania which had 15 boats entered.

Romania’s rowers made their intentions clear from the start taking an impressive gold in the women’s coxed four. However, Italy responded in the second final with gold in the men’s coxed four. The two nations matched each other’s gold medal tally at four each until the women’s eight when Romania took a convincing gold, finishing over ten seconds ahead of Germany. The victory was even more impressive as the crew was stroked by Tokyo 2020 Olympian Simona Radis who had won gold in the women’s single sculls less than two hours earlier.

It was a notable spread of European U23 Champions as eleven other nations picked up gold medals. Bulgaria took home two gold medals with World U23 Bronze medallist Lazar Penev winning the lightweight men’s single sculls and Emil Neykov matching his World U23 gold with the European men’s single sculls. Great Britain’s rowers picked up two golds in the final three events at the regatta; the men’s double and the men’s eight. Overall, 19 out of the 30 participating nations took home medals.

The 2022 edition of the European Rowing U23 Championships will be held in Hazewinkel, Belgium on 3-4 September next year.