~ Host Nation Tops the Medal Table With 4 Gold, 3 Silver and 3 Bronze Across 7 Days of Racing
"VAN" (Sports Desk - 31.08.2026) :: Victories for the Netherlands in the men’s eight and mixed double sculls left the host nation on top of the medal table at the 2026 World Rowing Championships, on a fast, exciting final day of racing in Amsterdam.
The Netherlands finished with four gold medals, three silvers and three bronzes. Germany claimed three gold medals, including Oliver Zeidler’s fourth title in the men’s single sculls, and the USA picked up three gold medals and six bronzes.
Zeidler’s gold medal means Germany is now level with Great Britain on top of the all-time medal table with 86 gold medals; Germany also leads the overall medal standings with 247 World Rowing Championships medals in total, ahead of 225 for Great Britain.
A total of 22 nations out of the 64 represented won at least one medal, and 12 won golds, including the first-ever World Rowing Championships gold medal for Uzbekistan in the lightweight men’s double sculls.
A total of 10 crews successfully defended their world titles, including the Netherlands and Romania in the men’s and mixed eights on the final day.
Romania won three gold medals, with their victorious women’s pair, Simona Radis and Adriana Adam, involved in all of them. After winning the pair on Friday, Radis and Adam led the
Romanian women’s eight to win in an official world-best time of 5:51.88. Twenty minutes after collecting their medals, they joined the Romanian mixed eight, which defended the title they won in Shanghai in 2025.
Nobody has ever won three gold medals at a single championship before Radis and Adam. Radis is now part of an elite group of eight athletes to have won eight or more World Rowing Championship gold medals – led by Matthew Pinsent (GBR) and Daniele Gilardoni (ITA), both with 10. Radis could feasibly equal or surpass them in Lucerne next year.
A total of 23 athletes went home with two medals. Simon van Dorp (NED) won two gold medals in Amsterdam, taking the men’s double sculls and mixed double sculls titles. He is the first male athlete to win two world titles at a single championship. Romanian coxswain Victoria Petreanu and rowers Cristina Druga and Amalia Chelaru joined Radis and Adam with gold from both the women’s eight and mixed eight.
Van Dorp’s mixed double sculls partner Roos de Jong also won silver in the women’s double sculls, while women’s double sculls champion Margaret Cremen (IRL) added silver in the mixed double sculls. All eight rowers in both the USA and Netherlands mixed eights also won medals in the men’s and women’s fours, and Sophia Vitas (USA) won women’s quadruple sculls and mixed double sculls bronze.
The tailwind conditions on the final weekend helped four world best times to fall. After the USA women’s four established a world best time of 6:09.87 on Saturday, three more world best times were set on Sunday. The Netherlands became the first crew in history to break 5:18 in the men’s eight, beating Great Britain in a thrilling photo finish for gold in a time of 6:17.75. The British were just 0.06 seconds back, and bronze medallists Australia also went under the previous marker, recording 5:18.28.
Soon afterward, Romania set an official World Best Time of 5:51.88 in the women’s eight final, lowering their own marker established at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
In the mixed double sculls, van Dorp and de Jong’s winning time was 6:15.80. This broke the world best time set in the semifinals by Sophia Vitas and Cedar Cunningham (USA) of 6:22.42, which was in turn some two seconds quicker than the world best time established by Ireland when the event made its debut in Shanghai last year.
The world best times will also be World Rowing Championship best times, adding to those set in the PR1 men’s single sculls, PR1 women’s single sculls, and women’s pair earlier in the regatta.
Continuing the historic theme of the regatta, the final day of racing saw Lauren Henry (GBR) become the first British woman ever to win the women’s single sculls title. Henry won silver in 2025 by 0.03 seconds behind Fiona Murtagh (IRL), but reversed that result with a dominant performance on the Bosbaan. Not to be outdone, her training partners in the British women’s eight won silver, their nation’s best-ever result in this event.
Those results added to a host of firsts for a number of nations during the regatta, including the first two gold medals for Mexican women in the lightweight single and double sculls and the first medal for a Swiss women’s crew boat in the women’s double sculls.
The USA’s first gold medal in the PR3 mixed coxed four also broke the longest unbeaten streak in any event, with Great Britain finishing second for the first time in 15 years.
Somalia and Syria competed for the first time at a senior World Rowing Championships. Somalia’s Abdirahman Hassan has previously raced at two World Rowing Under 23 Championships and made the step up to senior level, finishing 37th in the men’s single sculls.
Sukaina Atal represented Syria in the lightweight women’s single sculls and Devi Lockwood in the women’s single sculls; Lockwood won the E-final of her event, just months after the foundation of the Syrian Rowing Association.
The 814 athletes racing in Amsterdam were cheered on by spectators, with sold-out grandstands on Saturday and Sunday. Meanwhile, rowing fans across over 200 nations and territories watched the racing on television and live on the World Rowing website.
Innovations, including onboard cameras, enhanced the broadcast for the first time, showing live, close-up footage of the rowers in the middle of their efforts.
On the final day of the regatta, the rowing community also took a moment to celebrate the life of Norway’s Olaf Tufte, the two-time Olympic and world champion in the men’s single sculls, who passed away in July at age 50. Fittingly, Jonas Slettemark Juel (NOR) later became only the third Norwegian to win a men’s single sculls medal – alongside Tufte and Kjetil Borch – as he took bronze in a sprint finish. Afterwards, Juel said it was "extra special" to win the medal in Tufte’s honour.
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