Olympians enjoy fall success at the Head of the Charles

The 2024 Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston attracted entries from 2,625 crews representing 828 clubs from around the world – including a host of Olympians from Olympic Games from Melbourne 1956 to Paris 2024.

Boston turned on its best fall weather for the competing crews, with bright blue skies and good conditions for the three days of racing.

In the blue riband championship events, overseas crews packed with Olympians dominated. In women’s championship eights a crew formed mostly of members of the British Olympic sweep squad, racing as Leander Club, took the win in 15:30.452, edging out Yale University’s varsity eight featuring Greek Olympian Christina Bourmpou.

Britain’s Rebecca Wilde and Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne, bronze medallists in the women’s double sculls in Paris, added a Head of the Charles win to their successes this year in women’s championship doubles. They came out in front of a high-quality field that also included the Irish and Canadian lightweight doubles from Paris, and British Olympic quadruple sculls champions Lola Anderson and Hannah Scott.

Cambridge University won the men’s championship eights in a stunning performance ahead of Harvard University. Dartmouth University were third, stroked by US Olympian Billy Bender. Dutch club Skoll, including Paris 2024 men’s quadruple scull champion Lennart van Lierop and men’s eight silver medallist Jan van der Bij, were fourth after Oxford University’s crew, featuring Tokyo 2020 men’s eight champion Tom Mackintosh, were bumped to eighth thanks to a five-second buoy penalty.

Waikato Rowing Club’s Finn Hamill, fresh off racing at the 2024 World Under 23 Rowing Championships, World Rowing Coastal Championships, and World Beach Sprint Finals, took a surprising win in men’s championship singles after starting 16th. Hamill was fastest to every marker and beat second-placed Javier Garcia Ordonez of Spain by 21 seconds for victory and the $10,000 prize awarded to both championship single sculls winners.

Hamill told Rowing New Zealand: “It was epic. It was so cool.” He revealed he had been studying the course and thought the race went to plan, but did not believe he had won when he was first told.

Olympic lightweight men’s double sculls champions Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy also raced the single sculls, with O’Donovan finishing third and McCarthy 17th.

US lightweight Michelle Sechser, racing for Cambridge Boat Club, won women’s championship singles ahead of Kara Kohler. Paris 2024 silver medallist Emma Twigg from New Zealand finished ninth, with Britain’s world and Olympic lightweight women’s double sculls champion Imogen Grant about a second behind in 11th place.

Grant and Sechser teamed up with Romania’s Gianina van Groningen, France’s Laura Tarantola and both the Irish and Canadian lightweight women’s double sculls to also race championship eights, where they finished fifth. On social media, several of the crew spoke about how special it was to race together after years of competing against each other on the international stage.

The men’s championship doubles was won by Paris 2024 men’s pair champions Valent and Martin Sinkovic, racing for their home club HAVK Mladost. The Sinkovics were almost 25 seconds clear of Italian Olympians Matteo Sartori and Luca Rambaldi, reunited in the double after Rambaldi won quadruple sculls silver in Paris.

The Sinkovics also raced in a men’s championship eight with their men’s pair rivals Tom George and Oliver Wynne-Griffith of Great Britain, fellow Croatian Anton Loncaric, and US Olympians Michael DiSanto, Jack Lopas and Jamie Koven. At 51, Sydney 2000 Olympian Koven was the oldest in the championship eights field by some margin. The crew finished 12th.

Other notable results included a win for Olympic, world and European men’s single sculls champion Oliver Zeidler with his partner Sofia Meakin in the Directors’ Challenge mixed double sculls. Paris men’s single sculls bronze medallist Simon van Dorp helped the University of Washington to a course record of 14:07.67 in men’s alumni eights.

There was a notable win for the US PR3 mixed coxed four in mixed para PR3 fours. The crew, who did much of their training ahead of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games in Boston, shone in the second half of the race to win by 10 seconds ahead of the British composite of Paris 2024 champions Erin Kennedy, Giedre Rakauskaite and Josh O’Brien and Tokyo 2020 champions Oliver Stanhope and Ellen Buttrick.

Demonstrating the lifelong appeal of rowing, the regatta’s oldest competitor was 92-year-old Christopher Collins from Virginia, earning his eighth head of the Charles medal by taking the Grand Veteran III single sculls title on Friday. The last boat down the course on Sunday was also packed with experience, as Boston club Community Rowing Inc’s ‘Octogenarian 8’ – with an average age of 83 years old – completed the Director’s Challenge mixed eights.