Belgium’s Brys calls time on long career

It was not really the way Tim Brys wanted his international career to come to a close, but as he crossed the line in fourth place at the 2025 World Rowing Cup in Varese, the Belgian knew he had given everything.

“I’m a bit emotional, I think. The race went well, but I didn’t have the legs during the race and that was a bit of a shame,” Brys says, taking a break from derigging his boat.

“I said to myself I will give my all, like I did at the Olympics, and that’s what I did. I just pushed through until the end and the result is what I deserve. It’s OK.”

The 32-year-old Belgian first represented his country aged 19, at the 2011 World Rowing Under 23 Championships, finishing 10th in the lightweight men’s single sculls. Five years later, Brys won bronze at World Rowing Cup I with doubles partner Niels van Zandweghe.

Brys and van Zandweghe went on to win the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, but as single sculler Hannes Obreno also won his event and the rules prohibited two boats from one nation from qualifying, the double was not able to race at the Olympics.

The duo did qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, finishing fifth in the final. After that, Brys took the decision – before lightweight rowing would be taken out of the Olympic programme – to turn openweight, deciding that he had spent long enough trying to stay at weight despite being 1.9m tall.

Brys is excited about the way that smaller and lighter athletes are shining in openweight events this season.

“With even less than 80kg I think it’s possible to still do well and to perform, so that’s a positive sign for me and good for every lightweight that they can do it, and they should keep going and not stop,” he says, while admitting he found the transition to openweight challenging.

Brys’ heavyweight career started with a season in the men’s quadruple sculls, but he then switched to the men’s single sculls. At his first World Rowing Cup in the boat class in 2023 he finished fourth. While he missed out on Olympic qualification at the 2023 World Rowing Championships, he set that right at the European Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta last year in Szeged, sending him to his third Olympic Games.

“The Olympics were the highlight of my career. Everything went so well, the team was so well-prepared, we did everything we could. When it all comes together during a race, during the competition, and especially during the Olympics, that’s just amazing. I felt like I was on a cloud the whole time,” Brys says of Paris.

He finished fourth in Paris, clawing his way back into the final from being sixth at the 500m, and beating world bronze medallist Tom Mackintosh and Tokyo 2020 champion Stefanos Ntouskos (another former lightweight) in the process.

A year on, Brys has decided it is time to hang up his oars. But after Belgium qualified two boats for Paris, rowing appears to be in rude health in 2025. Young women’s single sculler Mazarine Guilbert won bronze at the 2024 World Rowing Under 23 Championships and was seventh at the European Rowing Championships and fifth in Varese; fellow single sculler Gaston Mercier also reached the semifinals and the men’s double sculls crew of Marlon Colpaert and Tibo Vyvey were fourth in Varese.

“I think together with Niels we proved that a small country can do great things. I feel like the team is motivated and they’re all happy and training well,” Brys says.

“With the younger guys now coming in and the lightweights transitioning we have a bigger crew now, so that’s better, because before it was only Niels and me. I’m really looking forward to the future of Belgian rowing.”

But Brys himself is content that he has achieved all he wants to. He says he is lacking motivation, and his body is tiring.

“It’s always good to be here and to be around friends and competitors and in the sun, that’s nice, but when you have to train every day two times a day and you have a family, and you do it for over, I don’t know how many years already, it’s a lot,” he admits.

There is a little more rowing to come. Brys will race at the Holland Beker regatta, and then end things in a double with van Zandweghe at Henley Royal Regatta.

“The circle’s round actually, we did it in 2016 so now again 2025 it’s amazing to end it that way,” Brys says, of Henley. “I’m very looking forward to it. The atmosphere is amazing there.”

So what is next? Brys says he just wants to spend time with family and friends, and rest.

He says he will continue to value the friendships he has made in rowing.

“In summer we went to Ireland and we visited the O’Donovan brothers. It already means a lot to me that we can just text other rowers, ‘can we visit, can we stay at your home?’ and to me that’s what it’s all about, about rowing,” he says.

“We are a small, small sport and that’s the thing that I enjoy the most in rowing, that off the water we can all be friends, we can enjoy each other. The brutality of the sport connects us.”