Great Britain through to 10 A finals at the 2025 European Rowing Championships
Men’s Quadruple Sculls and Women’s Single sculls join the eight crews who qualified for A finals on Thursday
Friday 30 May 2025 – Building on their heat from yesterday, the Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) of Cedol Dafydd, Callum Dixon, Matt Haywood and Rory Harris came out with strong intent, to lead their semi final from the 1Km and cross the line ahead of the Dutch.
“I’ll be honest. There are races in your career that you don’t necessarily enjoy as much. But races like that today are really enjoyable and at the end, I had a huge smile on my face”, said Matt, adding, “We felt good. We had a clear brief of what we wanted to do and we reacted to every call perfectly. We know this field is fast. It’s definitely faster than last year, with around six crews all going within seconds of each other, it’s ridiculous. So we knew our work was going to be cut out for us, but we just said, right, same as yesterday, just add that little bit. And it worked.”
Rory, who is new to the quad this season and making his European Championships debut, believes the support and help from Matt and Callum, his more experienced crew mates, has helped to push him and Cedol along and build confidence in the crew: “It’s been a great couple of days so far. I think the way we rowed, the way we raced made it enjoyable. It was paced to perfection. We’re rowing really well, consistently, and having Matt & Callum’s support has been incredibly helpful for both myself and Cedol.”
Lauren Henry maintained her confident start to life as a single sculler with another win in the Women’s Single Sculls (W1x) semi final, just 18 hours after she set a European and British record in the boat class. Commenting on the reaction to her debut race and record, she said: “It’s been quite mad – I ‘ve had so many messages, including from scullers who I’ve always looked up to, like former GB rower, Vicky Thornley.
“It feels amazing that I am now carrying on her legacy. We’ve only ever had two female scullers win medals at a World Championships – Vicky and Katherine Grainger – and it would be so special to build through the season and see my name alongside them.
“But first, I need to focus on the job at hand here. Everything started fresh again on the start line, so I didn’t want to get too carried away with the record. Overall I’m pleased with today and looking forward to racing again in the final on Sunday.”
Tobias Schröder and Jamie Gare were sixth in the Men’s double sculls (M2x) semi finals and will race the B final on Sunday. Earlier, Aidan Thompson finished 15th overall in the Men’s single sculls (M1x) C final.
