Monday debrief: Shanghai World Championships sets stage for fascinating Olympiad

The 2025 World Rowing Championships in Shanghai marked the end of the first year of the new Olympiad – a chance for new faces to break on to the scene and start the run-in to Los Angeles.

And what a regatta Shanghai turned out to be. While the weather may have been a major talking point, the performances produced by the 56 nations competing were high-level, absorbing, and groundbreaking.

A total of 25 nations picked up medals, including 13 winning gold, and several others stepped up to new levels.

On to the debrief.

Netherlands cement status as rowing powerhouse

The Netherlands topped the medal table at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and they proved that was no flash in the pan with another outstanding showing in Shanghai, winning four golds, one silver and one bronze in total.

Gold in the women’s quadruple and double sculls on days 1 and 2, as well as men’s four bronze, was followed by dominance in the eights on day 3. It was the first time that the Dutch had ever won either the men’s or women’s eights at a World Rowing Championships, and also the first time that any nation had won both events at a single World Rowing Championships since 1985 (when the USSR picked up both titles).

The Dutch joy was barely contained – indeed the women’s eight, watching the men race before their victory ceremony, got so excited they had to be warned about the approaching TV camera – and the vibes in that team are definitely good.

The Netherlands are the next hosts of the World Rowing Championships, which take place next year on the Bosbaan in Amsterdam. Everyone else had better watch out because this sort of quality combined with a home advantage means there could be even more orange on the podium, and the organisers may well be hard-pressed to stop the Dutch jumping in for celebratory swims, as is their tradition.

The standouts

Many nations stood out with historic best achievements in Shanghai, including the first-ever medals for several: Uruguay, Tunisia and Indonesia all go home with hardware. Uruguay’s Felipe Kluver’s win in the lightweight men’s single sculls was backed up with an sixth-place finish in the men’s single sculls for compatriot Bruno Cetraro. Tunisia’s lightweight women’s doubles silver follows their best Olympic finish (11th).

Lithuania are a European nation on the rise, with finalists in both the men’s and women’s single sculls and the men’s four. And look out for Uzbekistan: they may not have reached a final, but their men’s four were semifinalists and Shakhzod Nurmatov was eighth in the competitive lightweight men’s single sculls, plus they have several good young para-rowing crews.

It was also nice to see France pick up a medal in the women’s pair, after their underwhelming showing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The French women’s double sculls and men’s four also made their respective finals.

Starting fast

One pattern quickly became clear: the crews which got out fast had the best chance at a medal. The women’s fours and men’s single sculls were about the only exceptions to this rule, with the British women’s four showing early in their final and finishing fifth, while Stefanos Ntouskos was third to 500m and second to 1000m.

Notably, in several events slower starts arguably cost the favoured crews a gold medal. The British quadruple sculls and eights crews, and single sculler Lauren Henry, all had incredibly fast mid-race and last 500m pace, but were dropped by too much too early to catch the leaders. Likewise, Romania’s famed last-ditch sprints – such as in the women’s four – came just too late given the margins they had to make up. By the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games and a 1500m course, these slow starts could be even more costly.

Completing the set

The changing line-ups and fortunes around the rowing world, coupled with a number of athletes taking the year off, means that remarkably only five athletes who won gold medals in Paris last year won in the same boat class in Shanghai. Great Britain’s Benjamin Pritchard took the world title to add to the European and Paralympic titles in the PR1 men’s single sculls, and his teammates in the PR3 mixed coxed four can say the same (save for new coxswain Tom Bryce).

No Olympic champion added a 2025 world title in the same boat class – although several did pick up a win in a different event, and Simona Radis now has five World Rowing Championship gold medals from three regattas (2022, 2023 and 2025), across four events (women’s double, pair and eight, and mixed eight).

Mixed events a resounding success

The introduction of mixed events outside of para-rowing proved a solid success, with good entries in both the mixed double sculls and mixed eights, and some fascinating racing. It was interesting looking at the differing combinations and line-ups in the boats. In the doubles final, two boats only were stroked by women (Ireland’s Margaret Cremen and Romania’s Ioana Cornea). Ireland won, and Romania were sixth. The Irish were racing in their women’s shell, with the bow seat tweaked to fit Fintan McCarthy – their coaches were spotted switching shoes and fiddling with spans after the women’s double had finished racing.

 The gold and bronze-medal winning mixed eights, Romania and New Zealand, both chose to sit a woman at stroke, backed up by the four men, with the rest of the women in bow three; Germany, who were sixth, also did this while the other finalists put all their men in the stern.

Notably, with the slight tailwind on Sunday, times for the mixed events were fast. As they were the first-ever finals in these events, the winning times of 6:24.22 for the doubles and 5:34.46 for the eights are world bests; Romania’s time in the eight was actually faster than their men’s eight managed in Saturday’s B-final, although the wind did change.

Racing for love

Rowing is a sport that demands huge dedication and it’s good to share it with your loved ones. We had three sets of siblings going home with medals: the Palacios twins from Peru in the lightweight women’s double sculls; Alice and Giovanni Codato in the Italian mixed eight; and Fintan and Jake McCarthy, who won two bronze medals and a gold for Ireland.

In the Romanian mixed eight, there was gold medal joy for Mr & Mrs Florin and Maria Lehaci, who also take home silvers from the women’s eight and men’s pair. Stanislav Samoliuk of Ukraine memorably proposed to his partner Dariia Kotyk on the podium at the 2024 European Rowing Championships, and, now married, they won silver in the PR3 mixed double sculls. As Romania’s Andrei Cornea said after winning his mixed double sculls heat with his wife Ioana, “it’s a love race”.

Heat management

Everyone knew in advance that Shanghai would be hot and teams were training in hot conditions to prepare, as well as travelling out early on. At the venue, teams were deploying all the heat mitigation measures they could; ice vests before and after racing, and rowers boated in wet all-in-ones so they started with the lowest core temperature possible.

Some teams (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Great Britain) landed immediately after racing and vanished to cool down in air conditioning, while others picked up vests in the cooldown area and paddled out the lactic. But it never got too hot that racing had to be halted, although the World Rowing doctor was kept busy taking regular temperature readings to make sure everyone was safe.

Xiè xiè, Shanghai

One thing that stood out in Shanghai was the quality of the organisation and the continual enthusiastic help from the hordes of volunteers – at the venue, at the airport, and at team hotels, there was always someone around to help you out or answer a question.

The opening ceremony was spectacular and the closing ceremony, with a view of the iconic Shanghai skyline, colourful and lively. The memories of the 2025 World Rowing Championships will doubtless remain vivid for a long time for those lucky enough to be in China over the past week.

Thank you, Shanghai!