Monday debrief: Duisburg delights as U23s reach new heights

Although the 2026 World Rowing Under 23 Championships were not the largest in history, they will definitely go down as a landmark regatta for many countries. The regatta in Duisburg had a raft of ‘firsts’ and was memorable for all sorts of good reasons. Here’s the debrief.

The rise of Greek rowing

Greece are far from newcomers on the international rowing scene, but Duisburg saw them top the medal table with four gold medals and two silvers. Four of those six medals came in Olympic boat classes. Greece have never previously come top of the medal standings.

We expected Dimitra Kontou to continue to produce the goods, but the 20-year-old had another stellar regatta. Not only did she and Eleni Diavati retain the under 23 women’s double sculls title, but Kontou went on to also win the under 23 mixed double sculls. She now has five under 23 gold medals to her name from four championships, with another year in this age group still to come. Nobody in history has more under 23 titles.

Her teammates are also racking up the medals: Greece reached six finals and won a medal in all of them. Most of the Greek team have several years left at under 23 level. Make no mistake: we will see more of this group.

The firsts

The list of ‘firsts’ at the 2026 World Rowing Under 23 Championships is almost too long to list, but we’ll have a go.

Portugal had previously only won three under 23 medals, none gold. They won three, all gold, in 2026. All four athletes concerned had competed with some success at World Rowing Cups I and III this season, and that experience clearly paid off.

Kazakhstan’s Artem Matussevich won the first under 23 medal of any colour for his nation – bronze in the under 23 lightweight men’s single sculls – with a well-paced race. It was also the first time in 11 under 23 championships that Kazakhstan has qualified a boat for an A-final.

We saw the first medals of any colour for Spain in the under 23 women’s four (bronze), Romania in the under 23 women’s single sculls (gold), Serbia in the under 23 lightweight men’s double sculls (bronze) and Uzbekistan in the PR3 under 23 men’s single sculls (bronze). South Africa qualified their first big boats to an A-final, with both their men’s and women’s fours finishing sixth, and Belgium’s under 23 men’s pair made their final for the first time.

Australia won their first gold medal in the under 23 women’s pair in a dominant performance, and their PR3 single scullers, Susannah Lutze and Sam Stunell, both set under 23 world best times in their finals.

And of course it was also the first under 23 championships to feature the mixed double scull and mixed eight. Both lived up to their billing, providing a brilliant end to the regatta.

Which school do you go to?

The importance of the USA collegiate system to international rowing at this level is becoming ever-more obvious. The boat park in Duisburg was filled with people carrying college backpacks or wearing college kit for training.

Of the 57 individual gold medallists at the regatta, 36 (63 per cent) are currently attending USA universities. Admittedly, 21 of these are the USA athletes who won gold, and the other 15 all raced for Great Britain, but there were lots of college athletes in other boats from other nations too. Greek under 23 champions Dimitra Kontou and Konstantinos Giannoulis are both starting their collegiate careers, at Princeton and Northeastern respectively, this autumn.

Princeton and Stanford both boast six gold medallists each, representing the USA and Great Britain. Texas had five, from the USA and Australia, and Harvard four, from Great Britain and the USA.

The lure of funding and the resources that the USA universities can offer athletes is not going away, and more nations are seriously working on how they can retain their USA-based rowers for their national teams.

The importance of this pool is perhaps best-demonstrated by the under 23 women’s four final, where four boats – the USA, Great Britain, the Netherlands and South Africa – were fully comprised of USA collegiate athletes, along with two of the Spaniards. Romania were the only crew with no USA students. It is not out of the realms of possibility that USA-based athletes could make up an entire under 23 final in the next few years.

Keep your eye on …

There was outstanding performances from some of the regatta’s youngest athletes. Three 16-year-olds went home with medals: Uzbekistan’s Akbarali Abduvaliev in the PR3 under 23 men’s single sculls, and neutral athletes Tatiana Cherkasova and Aleksandra Grigoreva in the under 23 women’s double sculls.

Cherkasova and Grigoreva are both competing at the World Rowing Under 19 Championships in two weeks, although not in the same boat. Grigoreva is moving into the single, and we’re looking forward to the clash between her and Greece’s under 23 lightweight women’s double sculls champion Paschalina Mouratidou in that boat.

Meanwhile several under 23 athletes are on their way to Varese for the 2026 European Rowing Championships next weekend, including newly crowned under 23 women’s single sculls champion Bianca-Camelia Ifteni. Will success in Duisburg spur them on to senior finals in Italy?

Danke, Duisburg

And finally, a shout-out to the organisers and fans in Duisburg, who put on a really fun regatta. The ‘Regattabahn’ has just been renovated, with a brand-new grandstand building replacing the previous structure that dated back some 40 years. That gave plenty of space for a lively bunch of supporters from around the world to cheer on the athletes. There were drums and horns and the spectators took to clapping in time with the pre-race ‘heartbeat’ soundtrack just to add extra atmosphere.

The good news is the World Rowing community will get to revisit Duisburg in just a couple of years: the city is hosting 2028 World Rowing Cup III, the warm-up for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. So it’s Auf Wiedersehn, Duisburg, until then.