Qingdao’s Golden Beach set for golden coastal moments

The 2026 World Rowing Coastal Championships bring the year’s premier coastal endurance rowing event to mainland China for the first time in history, and a week later, the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals return to China after their 2019 debut in Shenzhen. This new foray outside Europe will take place at the spectacular Golden Beach in Qingdao, China.

Qingdao is no stranger to hosting top-level marine sporting events. The sailing events for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games took place there on the waters of the Yellow Sea, which separates China from the Korean peninsula, and since then the city has hosted multiple domestic and international events, including coastal rowing. It is known as China’s ‘sailing city.’ Now Qingdao has a chance to make its mark in rowing, too.

The backdrop for the World Rowing Coastal Championships and World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals is the 3.5 km-long Golden Beach, so called for its fine golden sand. From there, athletes will sprint to their boats and, for the coastal endurance events, take off into the blue waters of the Yellow Sea. The course takes them 1km out into the bay, then turns parallel to the beach and zigzags back to the finish, with a total distance of 4km for the heats and 6km for the finals.

The course and conditions are expected to be a little like those found in Saundersfoot in the UK back in 2022, dropping as much as 3 metres at their maximum. The beach is open to the east, and when it gets windy, the waves can really pick up – as happened for some of the sailing in 2008, although those events took place further out to sea than in coastal rowing – but conditions can also be milder, with smaller, gentler waves.

The average wind speed in recent years in October has tended to be fairly light, at 3.6 metres per second, with the prevailing wind being northerly, but early arrival Joel Naukkarinen of Finland says the wind and waves in his training so far have been changeable.

“We have had days when the wind has come from the right – or perhaps wrong – direction and the waves have been high enough that we haven’t been able to get on the water at all,” Naukkarinen says.

“One particularly interesting feature here seems to be the way swells coming from different directions combine with the local wind waves. The shape of the water can change surprisingly quickly, and you can end up with very different wave patterns in a relatively short period of time.

“Then you add the tide, currents, and changing wind direction into the equation. On some days, the combination becomes, at the very least, interesting.”

Naukkarinen says understanding the conditions will be key in China.

“I think Qingdao has the potential to reward athletes who can adapt quickly. It may not simply be a question of whether the waves are big or small, but of understanding what kind of waves you are actually dealing with at that particular moment,” he adds.

Athletes racing the coastal endurance event in Qingdao will bring experience of all types of waters from around the world, with 18 nations represented by 113 crews. At the World Rowing Coastal Championships, athletes are nominated by their federation to represent their club. The ‘home team’ in Qingdao will be Team Shandong, with the local province sending five women’s double sculls crews to compete. Representatives from three other Chinese provinces, Liaoning, Guangdong and Sichuan, will also race on the Yellow Sea.

Coastal rowing powerhouses Spain and Italy are both well represented too, among a truly global entry that sees crews travelling from North and South America, Africa and Australasia as well as Asia and Europe.

Several former world champions are back to try to reclaim their titles after a one-year break from the World Coastal Championships. They include Finlay Hamill, who will represent Molesey Boat Club of Great Britain in the coastal men’s solo although he is a New Zealander and 2023 champions Chris Bak and Kory Rogers (USA) in the coastal men’s double sculls.

Europeans showing they are on top form after the recent 2026 European Rowing Coastal Championships in Spain include Naukkarinen and his teammate Eeva Karppinen, who won the coastal mixed double sculls, as well as Naukkarinen triumphing in the coastal men’s solo event. Also watch Ronan Byrne, racing for the Irish Defense Forces Rowing Club, who took the club coastal men’s solo title in Spain.