Daily Digest: The 2025 World Rowing U19 Championships has started!

A thunderstorm caused a 30 minute delay, but racing eventually got underway in Trakai, Lithuania with the first heats of the 2025 World Rowing Under 19 Championships. It was just single and double sculls today with the remaining heats taking place tomorrow, Thursday 7 August.

European medalists impress in single sculls

As perhaps expected, Greece’s Varvara Lykomitrou, the reigning European Champion was untroubled in heat four of the U19 women’s single sculls. Already with a huge amount of experience to her name, and having won the double sculls at the World Rowing U23 Championships just a few weeks ago, Lykomitrou has confirmed she is definitely amongst the favourites to claim the World U19 Champion title in the final this coming Sunday. However, it was Spain’s Esther Fuerte Chacon, silver medalist from the Europeans, that clocked the fastest time across the five heats when she won the final one. Austria’s Maria Hauser, bronze medalist from this year’s European U19s was also impressive, clocking the third fastest time across the heats, winning heat two.

Schmied clocks fastest time, just!

Germany’s Mads Schmied, won gold in the U19 men’s quad last year and is now targeting the single sculls. He clocked the fastest time in the heats today, but his time of 7:10.16 was only marginally ahead of the 7:10.20 that Barnabas Botund Kup of Hungary clocked in the fourth and final heat. It’s all set for close racing in the later stages of the competition. It’ll be interesting to see what this year’s European U19 Champion Paul Schinnerl of Austria can do when he’s pushed a bit more.

Greece prove they are the ones to watch

 As picked out in our Crews to watch, the Greek women’s double sculls certainly impressed in the first of three heats, clocking 7:20.61. There was a change to the line-up however; whilst Eleni Diavati remained in the boat, Paschalina Mouratidou replaced Nefeli Ntara. In the second heat, the British duo of Emily Nicholas and Catherine Gardner led from the start to finish in a time of 7:24.04. Hungary was fastest off the start in the third and final heat, but it was then Ireland’s Aoife Hendy and Sophia Young who gradually worked their way through the field. Despite a final sprint from the Hungarians, the Irish held them off to cross the line first, in 7:26.88,

Krones and Klein fastest double

Germany’s Felix Krones and Julius Klein are one of the few crews that weren’t at the European Rowing U19 Championships, but their previous records indicated they would be one to watch. They clocked the fastest time across the four heats, posting 6:36.79 in heat two. However, the winning times were close across the other heats. Matching the win of the women, Greece won heat one in 6:40.96 with Hungary winning heat three in 6:37.02 and Ireland the final heat in 6:37.15. We can’t wait for the next stages of competition!

Remaining heats tomorrow

With the qualifications set in the single and double sculls, the remainder of the heats, and the preliminary race for the women’s eight will be contested tomorrow.