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By Martin Cross
The U.S. national team had a historic day at the World Rowing Cup II in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, earning six gold and five silver medals on Sunday. The U.S. claimed victories in the men’s single, women’s pair, women’s four, women’s quadruple sculls, women’s eight, and mixed double sculls while adding silver medals in the men’s single, men’s pair, women’s single, women’s double, and men’s eight. Several athletes raced multiple events, including Sophia Vitas and Cedar Cunningham, winners of the mixed double sculls.
With 250 meters to go in the final of the men’s single sculls, Jacob Plihal sensed blood. The 6’10″ Olympic sculler knew that his teammate, Sam Melvin, was fading. Plihal had beaten Melvin in Saturday’s semi on the fast Plovdiv course in Bulgaria. Now the Craftsbury sculler felt sure he could overhaul Melvin—who is 10 inches shorter than him—and grab the glory of his first ever World Rowing Cup gold medal.
But the New York Athletic Club sculler is nothing if not determined. Some of the U.S. team management even speculate that he has a higher tolerance to pain than the rest of the team. Either way, Melvin’s rejuvenated technique—he now uses much less body at the catch—carried him home to an historic victory, by the narrowest of margins, under 0.3 of a second.
It was “historic” because it was the first time ever that one nation—the USA—had ever won gold and silver in the World Rowing Cup men’s singles competition.
It was a result that reflected a great day for Olympic boss Josy Verdonkschot’s Team USA. The women’s four, coached by Jesse Foglia, had a claim to be labelled one of the crews of the regatta. They were long, fluid, and, most of all, patient in their dominant victory over New Zealand and Italy.
Teal Cohen and Kate Knifton had helped the USA win the women’s four at the 2025 World Rowing Championships in Shanghai, just over nine months ago. But here, on Plovdiv’s super-fast course, they raced the pair. And the two Texans dominated their field in the very fast time of 6:50.82. In doing so, they beat two of the medallists from the season’s first World Rowing Cup in Seville: Chile and Czechia.
The U.S. women’s quad, stroked beautifully by Emily Kallfelz, produced one of the biggest winning margins of the day. The 29-year-old led her crew to a nine-second victory over New Zealand and China. Their coach, Fiona Bourke, will know that both Germany and Great Britain—who took gold and silver in Seville—were absent from Plovdiv. But the USA’s time of 6:08 was only three seconds off the fastest quads mark ever recorded.
The USA pair of Gus Rodriguez and Peter Chatain may not have won, but they took silver in one of the fastest pair races ever. The winners, Kiwi world champions Oli Welch and Ben Taylor, looked set to break the legendary mark set by Eric Murray and Hamish Bond in London 2012, of 6:08.5. In the end, the winning time was 6:09.04. And the Americans set what this correspondent is minded to call the fastest US pair’s time ever, 6:11.77.
It was not all plain sailing for the U.S. team. The men’s four missed out on an A final place and the eight—who in fairness were doubling up—went down to a rampant Italy by five seconds. But there was enough here to send Verdonkschot off to the Lucerne World Rowing Cup III at the end of June with a spring in his step
“Plovdiv showed that we are making progress across the team and gave us a good picture of where we are at this point in the year,” said Verdonkschot, The McLane Family Chief High Performance Officer for USRowing. “We know the field did not include every top crew, so we’re keeping the results in the right perspective, but we feel good about the direction of the team.”
The race of the day—apart from Plihal versus Melvin—was the men’s double, where the seemingly out-of-form Croatian legends Martin and Valent Sinkovic won gold in the sensational time of 6:00.97, just a whisker off the world best time they set in Amsterdam over 12 years ago.
Make no mistake the Sinkovic brothers will challenge for medals in Amsterdam once more, at this year’s World Rowing Championships in late August.
