Great Britain win four medals at the 2025 European Rowing Championships
Another world best time for newly crowned 2025 European Champion Benjamin Pritchard
Saturday 31 May 2025 – Great Britain has won a gold, silver and two bronze medals on the first day of finals at the 2025 European Rowing Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Paralympic Champion Benjamin Pritchard added the title of European Champion to his accolades, winning the PR1 Men’s single sculls (PR1 M1x) final in another World Best Time, setting a European and British record of 08:40.38 and beating his time in the heat by almost 7 seconds.
“I’m the first ever British PR1 European Champion. Full stop. And getting a World Best Time twice in a week – It’s all pretty special to go down in the history books for that.” Benjamin said, adding, “I also feel like there’s some room to go. I’m still early in my training and it’s early in the season, with 20 weeks to go until the World Championships. I’m really looking forward to building on the results here and to keep pushing the standard on to Shanghai and then towards the LA Paralympic Games”.
It was a stunning silver for Paralympic silver medallists Sam Murray and Annie Caddick in the PR3 mixed double sculls (PR3 Mix 2x). Sam said: “I’m very proud of what we executed out there today. We’re only at the start of this campaign and have a lot of races coming up to build towards the World Championships.”
Annie added: “I’m enjoying being back racing with Sam. We’ve only been together again in the double for about three weeks, but we’re seeing some good speeds, so I think there’s definitely more to come from us!”
In their first ever senior European final, Eleanor Brinkhoff and Megan Slabbert won a brilliant bronze in the Women’s Pair (W2-). Eleanor said: “We’ve had a bit of a bumpy ride, but managed to find some speed in the last few weeks. Saying that, I think we’ve surprised ourselves and possibly the coaches with our performance today! To get on the podium and have something around our necks shows the hard work that we’ve put in. We’re happy that today has gone well, so we don’t have to pick ourselves up to race again tomorrow in the eight. We can have a bit of confidence now and keep riding the wave of excitement.”
Megan added: “It feels amazing to have our first senior podium experience in our first senior race. I’m looking forward to going out in the eight tomorrow to see if we can do it again!”
The final medal of the day was won by the Women’s Four (W4-) of Daisy Bellamy, Lauren Irwin, Martha Birtles and Heidi Long, who will also be doubling up in the eight on Sunday. Speaking after collecting their bronze medal, Heidi said: “It was great fun. You can’t beat racing, so to start a new cycle with a whole new crew has been awesome and I enjoyed every moment of it! Bronze is a great result for us and where we expect to be as we build through the season.”
Commenting on winning a medal on her senior European debut, Daisy added: “Coming away with a Championship medal is not a small feat, so to get out there with a new crew and achieve that in our second race down the track – you can’t ask for more than that. All of the girls from last year have been so encouraging and have taught us so much going into today and that’s helped to boost our confidence. We’re all also looking forward to getting back out tomorrow to race the eight. We always say, party at the one km… So we’ll see everyone there!”
In the Women’s double sculls (W2x), the GB duo of Vwairé Obukohwo and Freya Keto, racing their first senior A final, fought well and were bold in the middle of the race to move up to and finish the race in fifth place.
Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallist Tom Barras stepped in as a medical substitute for Tobias Schröder, to make his Men’s double sculls (M2x) GB debut. Together with Jamie Gare, the double finished 12th overall in the B final. In the other B final of the day, Joshua Bowesman-Jones, James Vogel, Dan Graham, and Jake Wincomb were 8th overall in the Men’s four (M4-).
