The 2024 European Rowing Championships and and the World Rowing European Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta came to a close on Sunday in Szeged, Hungary, as Romania won the women’s eight in style.
The defending champions’ win over Great Britain (silver) and Italy (bronze) was their fourth gold medal of the championships, but it was Britain who finished atop the medal table with a total of eight gold medals, one silver, and one bronze.
Crews from nine nations go home as European rowing champions, including Norway. Adding to Birgit Skarstein’s gold in the PR1 women’s single sculls on Saturday, Thea Helseth and Inger Seim Kavlie won the women’s double sculls on Sunday. Their victory, ahead of world silver medallists Lithuania, and world and Olympic champions Romania, was Norway’s first-ever win for a women’s crew in an Olympic boat class at this level.
Great Britain’s wins included a clean sweep of the men’s sweep events. Adding to victory in the men’s eight yesterday, their men’s pair and men’s four looked dominant in winning their finals on Sunday. Tom George and Ollie Wynne-Griffith in the pair earned European gold on the third time of asking, after two previous silver medals, while the four defended their 2023 title.
The British PR3 mixed coxed four also remained dominant, and are now the boat with the longest winning streak in any boat class – stretching right back to 2010, despite multiple crew changes in that time. France and Italy rounded off the podium.
Among the Romanian victories, women’s pair champions Ioana Vrinceanu and Roxana Anghel made it two gold medals on Sunday as they also doubled up in the eight. Meanwhile Andrei-Sebastian Cornea and Marian Enache stormed to a huge early margin in the men’s double sculls to win their nation’s first gold medal in this boat class.
Other Sunday champions included Serbia’s Jovana Arsic, who won the women’s single sculls with a blistering first 500m, and Germany’s Oliver Zeidler, who will go to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as world and European champion in the men’s single sculls.
In the 2024 World Rowing European Olympic & Paralympic Qualification Regatta, 10 crews booked tickets to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Individual neutral athlete Tatsiana Klimovich, Azerbaijan’s Diana Dymchenko, Ukrainian Yevheniia Dovhodko, Serbian Nikolaj Pimenov, Bulgaria’s Kristian Vasilev, and Belgian Tim Brys earned the nod in the single sculls; Poland and Austria qualified in the lightweight women’s double sculls; and Ukraine and Belgium in the lightweight men’s double sculls.
