A wide spread of medals at the 2022 European Rowing Under 23 Championships

The sixth European Rowing Under 23 Championships held this weekend in Hazewinkel, Belgium featured entries from 30 European countries including World Under 23 and World Under 19 Champions from earlier this year.

Romania finished at the top of the medals’ table for the second year in a row with an impressive total of five gold and four silver medals. Poland, Italy, and Greece each won three gold medals, while host nation Belgium had two.

The Romanian rowers started their medal haul with an easy win in the men’s coxed four, followed by a convincing victory in the women’s four. The Romanian national anthem would be heard three more times with dominant performances in the women’s quadruple sculls and in both the men’s and the women’s eights.

It was a notable spread of European U23 Champions as a total of ten nations picked up gold medals. Poland’s Piotr Plominski won the men’s single sculls ahead of the reigning champion of Bulgaria, Emil Neykov. In the women’s single sculls, Aurelia-Maxima Janzen of Switzerland, now famous on the international circuit for rowing with macon blades, defended her title in that event, ahead of Anna Santruckova of the Czech Republic and Daria Stavynoga of Ukraine.

In what was the closest race of the day, Czech Republic continued their long winning tradition in the men’s quadruple sculls by beating Germany over the line by 0,3 seconds. To the delight of the home crowd, Belgium won two gold medals in the men’s double sculls and the lightweight men’s double sculls – this one also in thrilling fashion, with less than two seconds separating the three medallists.

Overall, 18 out of the 30 participating nations took home medals.

The European Rowing Board are in discussions with Krefeld, Germany, regarding the 2023 European Rowing Under 23 Championships, originally attributed to Rostov-on-Don, Russia.