Great Britain makes strong start to World Rowing Cup season

British crews reached four A-Finals and seven semi-finals on day 1 of the 2026 World Rowing Cup I in Seville, showing strong performances in the blistering heat

Racing began with the Women’s Single Sculls, where last year’s World Rowing Cup winner Lauren Henry was in the final heat. Lauren posted the fastest heat time of 7:34.06 to progress confidently through to Saturday’s semi-finals.

“I’ve been waiting for that moment since Shanghai really. Good to get out there, good to get a good heat down, and I’m really excited for the weekend going forward,” Lauren said.

“It’s always exciting at the start of a new season to see how everybody has come out of the winter block – not just yourself, or the other British crews, but the rest of the world,” she added.

Also producing the fastest heat time, and qualifying directly for the A-final, was the Women’s Quadruple Sculls crew of Sarah McKay, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Finn Stratton. They led through every marker and will race again on Sunday.

“That was fun,” said Lola afterwards. “It’s nice to come to a new race course, it’s a bit more exciting for everyone and Seville’s such a beautiful one, so it was really fun just to get down the track and get the first one done.

“We’ve been working really hard to maintain that unity and depth across our squad throughout our winter, so although it’s a new combination it doesn’t feel too dissimilar from everything we’ve been working on.”

The Men’s Four of Dan Graham, James Robson, Douwe De Graaf and George Bourne picked up where they left off after winning the 2025 World Rowing Championships in Shanghai. After taking a lead of over three seconds at 500m the British boat were able to look back on the field and cruise to victory and a place in the semi-finals.

“It was really fun to be back on the start line as a unit. All went perfectly to plan really, we had a really good start, kind of jumped out then found a really nice long rhythm which let us move away through the middle K,” said Dan.

The Women’s Four also qualified for the A-final, after third place in their heat. The boat, including Women’s Eight world bronze medallist Eleanor Brinkhoff, and World Rowing Cup debutants Angharad Broughton, Sarah Marshall and Holly Youd, were in the mix throughout their race, exchanging second and third place with New Zealand before finishing a very close third on the line. Their time was the fourth-fastest of the six boats progressing to the final.

“It’s a new combination, it’s been a long winter training, so it’s fun to get out racing again in the summer regattas,” Eleanor said. “Hopefully we’ve learned some stuff going into the final on Sunday.”

The new-look Men’s Quadruple Sculls crew of James Cartwright, James Gare, Matthew Haywood and Rory Harris took time to build into their heat, but stayed calm to move through the field in the middle 1000m and take second place, automatically putting them in tomorrow’s semi-finals.

Matt said: “It was good fun. It’s always nice to get back out there, get back to some summer racing – that’s what we do it for, it’s what all the training’s for.

“We’re relatively happy with that as a first race. We know where we need to go, we know what we need to work on, a pretty solid start.”

The British scullers also showed strong performances in the double sculls, with both crews qualifying for the semi-finals. Callum Dixon and Tobias Schroeder were drawn in a challenging Men’s Double Sculls heat including a new Dutch combination of proven medallists and Rio 2016 Olympic champions Martin and Valent Sinkovic of Croatia, but showed composure to claim the important second place behind the Dutch.

“It was quite daunting seeing the line-up for the heat last night, for both of our first time racing in the double together, but we’ve done well in training and just wanted to do what we’ve done before, and see where it landed us. There’s room to improve, but it was a good start,” said Tobias.

The development crew of Ed Fuller and Matt Long also progressed to the semi-finals based on time – pushing out the Sinkovic brothers in the process. Ed said: “It was a really solid row, I’m quite happy with it. We know how competitive of an event the men’s double is, so we didn’t put any expectations on the result, we just wanted to go in chasing a good row rather than a good result and see where we ended up.

“Maybe we didn’t get out of the blocks as perfect as we would have liked, but then from 300 into the race onwards we found a really nice rhythm. To be in an A/B semi-final is really cool, so we’re going to give it our best tomorrow and see what comes off.”

In the Women’s Double Sculls Becky Wilde and Cam Nyland started strongly and rowed a consistent middle of the race, just being pipped on the line by Romania 2 – but qualifying for the semi-finals based on time.

“We’ve literally been together about two weeks, so every piece we’ve done together we’re really learning. To get the first one out of the way is a relief, and now we can step on throughout the regatta,” Becky said.

The men’s pair of James Vogel and Matt Rowe were fifth in their heat, but qualify for the semi-finals based on time. They were involved in a close battle with Norway and Ireland to 1500m and want to step on in Saturday’s race.

“We were beaten by some fast crews, but there’s two more races to try and react to that and do a good job,” said Matt.

Both the Men’s and Women’s Eights had preliminary races for lanes. The Women’s Eight – Lizzie Witt, Jade Lindo, Lauren Irwin, Katherine George, Amelia Standing, Megan Slabbert, Heidi Long, Annie Campbell-Orde and cox Jack Tottem – tracked the Netherlands closely in the first half of the race before getting their bows in front and finish with a win.

Megan said: “That was a super-exciting race. We have half of us back in the crew from last year, so it’s really exciting to come back where we left off – maybe even faster – and see where we’re at,” Megan said.

She joked in the last 500m she was thinking: “It is so hot, my mouth is so dry,” but added: “Really it was just cling on and trust all the work we’ve been doing.”

The Men’s Eight (Matt Aldridge, Fergus Woolnough, Gabriel Obholzer, Sam Nunn, David Bewicke-Copley, Harry Geffen, Miles Beeson, Archie Drummond and cox Tom Bryce) were also in a close race with world champions the Netherlands and Romania. A strong start from the Dutch forced the British men to fight back with a strong middle 1000m, and they finished third but with lessons learned.

“I think we executed some parts of our plan how we wanted to, and others maybe not so well. We look to build for the final,” Sam said.

The Women’s Pair and Men’s Single Scull will both race minor finals on Saturday. Racing reserves Juliette Perry and Lauren Carey had a solid race but missed out of the top 12 based on time, and will contest the C-final.

World Cup debutant Adam Oliver raced well in his Single Sculls heat to secure a quarter-final spot, and went again in the afternoon session. He will race the D-final on Saturday, in a field which will also include reigning world champion Stefanos Ntouskos of Greece.

“I did my best out there, and that’s all I can ask for, I think,” said Adam. “I did catch a crab about 250 in and that just put me away from the pack. I was definitely hoping to sneak into that A/B semi, but I’ll take it.”

Interim Director of Performance Tom Dyson said: “Today’s racing has been an encouraging start for the team with 11 crews moving onto semi-finals or A finals. As the first races of the season, the most important thing will be the learnings that everyone takes into their next race. We’ve had our first insight into our crews’ performances in racing and will now be looking at how they can move on through the regatta.”

Racing continues on Saturday from 08:40 BST with the minor finals; the first semi-final is at 10:05 BST.