Monday debrief: Beach sprints takes confident step into first Olympiad

Anyone still wondering just why beach sprints has been included in the Olympic programme for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games needs only to watch back some of the highlights of the 2025 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals.

On the bright blue Mediterranean waters off Antalya, Türkiye, 300 athletes gathered in search of medals, but also in search of that intangible beach sprint vibe which makes the discipline so fun to watch and to take part in.

After four incredible days of racing, here’s the debrief.

Success for the stalwarts

As beach sprints has developed, a group of athletes have made the discipline their own. Rather than splitting their time between classic and coastal, the likes of Aubrey Oldham, Sarah Pidgen, Ander Martin and David Hussey have been key to growing beach sprints’ popularity and skill levels.

Martin reached the podium for a fourth time in Antalya, coming second to the USA’s Christopher Bak. The duo have known each other since 2021, when Bak made his World Rowing Beach Sprints debut, but said they have been waiting to race each other for years – and it was a good race, in the end, although perhaps not quite as good as Martin’s semifinal against Germany’s Moritz Wolff. The Spaniard said that was one of the best races in beach sprint finals history, and he could be right.

But in winning gold, Bak cemented his status as the discipline’s best. Nobody else has won as many gold medals as the American – four – and only one other athlete has won as many medals as Bak (Tunisian Hela Belhaje Mohamed). Although new faces will undoubtedly continue to break into beach sprints running into LA, it is the pioneers like Martin and Bak who will continue to set the standard.

They are also setting an example. Hussey is leading the development of coastal rowing in Ireland, and was competing as the cox of an under 23 quad in Antalya. And once he had finished racing, Oldham promptly volunteered to help out with Sunday’s organising, donned a World Rowing t-shirt, and got stuck in.

 Talents of tomorrow

The 2025 edition of the competition also unveiled a number of potential stars of the future. Last year, the USA’s Annalise Hahl won both the coastal under 19 women’s solo and double sculls, and this year, she was part of the winning senior coastal mixed quadruple sculls crew, an impressive step-up.

Following in her footsteps is Germany’s Mia Tetiwa, who fell just a little short of matching Hahl’s double gold – taking the win in the double, and silver in the solo. Tetiwa also competed at the 2024 and 2025 World Rowing Under 19 Championships, so has shown she could be an all-round talent.

There were some strong showings by the younger juniors too. Magdalena Vlastnikova won Czechia’s first under 19 beach sprints medal, bronze in the solo, and she is only just 16 years old. Look out for her next year, as well as fellow 16-year-old Iason Mouselimis of Greece who lost to eventual under 19 men’s solo silver medallist Felix Krones by just 0.1 seconds in the quarterfinals.

Mind your feet

Speaking of close races, that coastal under 19 men’s solo quarterfinal was not even the closest finish of the competition. That honour went to the bronze-medal race in the under 19 women’s solo; by eye, Vlastnikova and her opponent Maria Lanciano of Italy hit their buzzers at exactly the same time, but the win went to the Czech. It was the closest of a series of races that came down to fractions of a second, showing that the running part of beach sprints is critical, and athletes who will shine must be fast on land, strong on the water, and able to quickly recover for the next intense showdown.

Vibes are key

Although beach sprints is now an Olympic discipline and nations are starting to invest in their teams’ development, everyone is very keen to preserve the pioneering spirit of the sport. That means getting stuck in to help smaller teams out if they don’t have enough boat handlers when it gets rough, plenty of chat with your rivals around races, and non-stop tunes all day long. The fans on the beach also brought lots of good atmosphere to Antalya. Even when the racing got serious, that sense of enjoyment was ever-present, and, the athletes insist, must remain so as the prospect of Los Angeles gets closer.

What a year that was

The 2025 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals brings to an end the World Rowing on-water season – there’s just the indoor Versa Challenge, in Singapore in three weeks, to come. The post-Olympics year is always one of rebuilding, but this year has shown that both in classic and coastal the sport is in an exciting phase of development with a whole host of interesting narratives to play out as we lead up to Los Angeles. 2026, with World Rowing Cups in Seville, Plovdiv and Lucerne, the World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam, the World Rowing Coastal Championships and Beach Sprint Finals in Qingdao, and the new Shanghai Sprints in Shanghai all on offer, is set to be another thrilling season.

We can’t wait.