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After the U.S. women’s eight’s 11-year streak of world championships and three Olympic golds, from 2006 to 2016, it was a long five years from the last time any USRowing senior National Team boat won a worlds gold, in 2019, and a tough couple of Olympics in which the U.S. women didn’t win a single medal during the same five years.
The USA’s women’s four of bow Camille VanderMeer (Princeton), Azja Czajkowski (Stanford), Teal Cohen (Washington), and stroke Kaitlin Knifton (Texas) ended that streak, winning the 2025 World Rowing Championships in Shanghai by racing through the field in the A final with a demonstration of power and speed.
“The result of the women’s four shows that we are back on track with women’s sweep,” said Josy Verdonkschot, The McLane Family Chief High Performance Officer for USRowing.
While three of the four are Olympians from the Paris Games—Knifton in the fifth-place four, Cohen in the ninth-place quad, and Czajkowski in the fourth-place pair—they are part of a squad of relatively fresh faces who announced their arrival at the top of elite international rowing this summer with wins and medals in fours and the eight at the World Rowing Cups in Varese and Lucerne.
“Four young athletes, from four different programs, who lead the way for the new generation,” Verdonkschot said. “I want to thank their coaches—Dave O’Neill, Yaz Farooq, Derek Byrnes, and Lori Dauphiny—for their support of our system and for the way they work together with Jesse Foglia. It gives me a lot of confidence in the future.”
The next stops in that future are the World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam next year and then Lucerne in 2027, before the U.S. hosts the Games of the XXXIV Olympiad in Los Angeles in 2028.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Fast eights: Comparing times in the sport of rowing is a fool’s errand, since conditions, including currents, winds, and water temperature, can distort the numbers. At times this spring, Princeton’s Carnegie Lake was more like the Carnegie River, as heavy rains raised the water level, and strong winds pushed both crews and water down the course.
Still, the Tennessee women’s sub-six winning time (5:57.6) against Princeton, Syracuse, and Ohio State in late April was incredible. The Harvard lightweights covered the same course in 5:28.5 (World Rowing’s world-best time is the German National Team’s 5:30.2 at the 1992 Worlds in Montreal) to win the Goldthwait Cup against Princeton and Yale before winning everything else for the rest of the year. Included in that winning streak was a Henley match race against the Virginia’s men’s eight, the ACRA club national champion, in which sisters Anya Chang (Harvard) and Celia Chang (Virginia) coxed against each other.
The Stanford women’s 5:58.6 at the ACC Championships on Lake Hartwell was real, with no assistance from abnormal currents. The Cardinal sent seven current and former rowers to represent their countries at worlds, and none went that fast there.
The Netherlands won both the men’s and women’s eights at worlds, for the first time ever in the country’s history of great rowing. Their women didn’t even have an eight for the Paris Olympics but put one together for this year, won Henley, and then beat the Olympic champion Romanians at their own game with clean relatively short strokes at high ratings.
The Gemini.com Beach Sprint [U.S.]National Team won “three medals out of the four senior events, that’s almost grand slam” said Josy Verdonkschot. “Christine [Cavallo] was very unlucky in the draw, but that is also part of the Beach Sprints format. Like the rest of the team, she showed that we are competitive in all events. All credit to this group and of course our coach, Marc Oria.
“This year we invested in the senior team athletes and their program, including domestic camps, and camps and races in Europe. The selected team was a healthy mix of established names, young talents, and cross-over athletes. And they delivered”
Vanderbilt’s women repeated as ACRA club national champions, RowAmerica Rye took repeat national championships a step further at the 2025 USRowing Youth National Championships—the biggest and best version ever—winning both the men’s and women’s youth eights, again.
