To continue reading…
This article is exclusively for Rowing News subscribers. For as little as $5 a month, you can get access to the best quality, independent reporting on all the issues that matter to the North American rowing community.
U.S. athletes won four gold, a silver, and a bronze to finish second to Greece—four gold, two silver—on the medals table at the 2026 World Rowing Under 23 Championships in Duisburg, Germany, July 23-26.
The women’s eight, four, and quad led the way for the USA, winning gold, as did the mixed eight. The U.S. women’s eight has now won gold 12 out of the 20 years the U23 worlds event has been held, never finishing worse than bronze. During that time, the U.S. senior national team eight went undefeated in Olympic, world championship, and World Rowing Cup competition in 11 years from 2006 through 2016.
“We really have built on our strong American base,” said Elsa Hartmann, a member of the women’s eight. “Once we shifted into that first 500, we really settled into that base and it was awesome. From there, we were like, ‘We have the confidence, we’ve got this’.”
Great Britain won the U23 men’s straight four and eight, the latter for the seventh year in a row. The U.S. men won silver in the eight, a second back. The U.S. men’s straight four won bronze. The GB men’s Olympic eight has won gold (Paris 2024), bronze (Tokyo 2020), and gold (Rio 2016) over the past three Games.
Imogen Grey and Lucy Searle, stern pair of Texas’ NCAA-champion eight, won the women’s pair, Australia’s first-ever title in the under-23 event, finishing 9.5 seconds clear of second-place. Last year, Longhorns Marg van der Wal and Ilva Boone won the event for The Netherlands.
The U.S. women’s U23 quad, in fourth place after the first 500, sculled through the leaders to win, more than four seconds ahead of second-place Great Britain. Stanford University’s Sumner Kerr, Harvard University’s Kathryn Serra, Michigan State University’s Madison Kieft, and University of Virginia’s Lila Henn won the first U.S. gold medal in the women’s quadruple sculls at U23 worlds since 2007.
“I’m incredibly proud of what this team accomplished over the past week, but even more proud of the work that went into getting here,” said Brett Gorman, USRowing Head Coach of High Performance Pathways. “This success is the result of months of hard work by our athletes and an exceptional coaching staff, led by head coach Sergio Espinoza.”
The U.S. women’s gold in the straight four makes USRowing the current defending world champion in the Olympic boat class on the U19, U23, and senior levels. The U23 crew of Phoebe Wise, Claire van Praagh, Ella Wheeler, and Annika Jeffery also rowed in the mixed eight—joining the men’s four crew and men’s eight coxswain Michael Kain—earning their second gold medals of the regatta.
The 2026 World Rowing Under 19 Championships will be held August 6-9 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The senior 2026 World Rowing Championships are August 23-30 in Amsterdam.
