Silver medals for Men’s and Women’s quads

Three other crews won their heats on day five of World Rowing Championships

Thursday 25 September 2025 – Great Britain’s Men’s and Women’s quadruple sculls won a brace of silver medals at the World Rowing Championships in Shanghai.

The Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) was an entertaining race with Cedol Dafydd, Callum Dixon, Matt Haywood and Rory Harris battling throughout to finish with the silver medal, just behind Italy.

Matt said: “That was hard. It’s so hot out there and I feel like we got a lot of things right. Perhaps we put a little bit more into the early rounds than other people did, which we perhaps paid for a little bit, but this is a World Champs and we can hold our heads high to come away with silver as it’s been an incredible season and we’ve done incredible things. Hopefully, there’s plenty more.”

Callum said: “This is my first World Championship medal, so I’m very happy about that.”

Cedol said: “We came in wanting to win and we knew we could if everything went well and we raced our best. Unfortunately, our best today just wasn’t quite good enough. Credit to Italy, they were better than us today.”

Rory said: “I am very proud of the four of us and this is a great end to the season. I think we’ll be absolutely delighted when we look back on it. It’s a testament to how our season’s gone so far that we are a little bit disappointed. But, it’s still a silver medal. Matt said ‘medals at world champs don’t grow on trees’ and he’s right. I’ve absolutely thoroughly enjoyed the season I’ve had with these four.”

The Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x) of Sarah McKay, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Becky Wilde also took the silver in another fast paced race, finishing just behind the Dutch.

Sarah, who has taken a break as a cancer nurse at the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool to pursue her rowing full time said: “I have a work whatsapp group with the staff and I put a little message on yesterday as I know that they were all keen to watch the race as it was ideal viewing time in the UK. It was perfect – they could all watch before starting work. I’ve had lots of nice messages through, so it’s so lovely to know that people back home are watching and supporting us.”

Lola said: “We’ve had a challenging season with illness and injury and I think we did everything we could out there today. So, we’re very happy, and a silver medal is a lovely bonus on top of that!”

Taking lots of positives from their first senior World Championship, Lizzie Witt and Jade Lindo finished sixth in the Women’s pair (W2-) final.

Earlier in the day, three crews – the men’s and women’s eights and the PR3 mixed double took to the water and won their heats races.

The Men’s eight (M8+) are through to the A final. The crew of Will Stewart, Archie Drummond, David Bewicke-Copley, Fergus Woolnough, Miles Beeson, Sam Nunn, Matt Aldridge, Matt Rowe and cox Will Denegri won in the fastest time across the heats.

David said: “There’s been a lot of waiting around for us in the eight. It’s been a while since we’ve last raced, but we’ve put a lot of hard work in and were very keen to take to the water and get a race under our belt. We’re very lucky that the whole team is super supportive, and seeing the crews around us doing well has definitely given us a sense of momentum going into today.”

The Women’s eight (W8+) of Eleanor Brinkhoff, Juliette Perry, Amelia Standing, Martha Birtles, Lauren Irwin, Eve Stewart, Heidi Long and Megan Slabbert and cox, Jack Tottem, also won their heat and progressed to the A final.

Eleanor said: “It was hot out there, but huge thanks to our support staff. They have been absolutely epic getting ice to us and bringing out ice jackets. So a massive thank you to them. I also want to shout out our reserves, Imogen and Vwairé. They’re doing an absolutely fantastic job supporting us. It’s not always easy being a reserve at a major event but they’ve put that to one side and are getting on with helping the team out – it’s just made the world of difference.”

Paralympic silver medallists Sam Murray and Annie Caddick also won their PR3 mixed double sculls (PR3 Mix 2x) heat and progress to the semi final. Sam said: “It’s been a while since we raced the European Championships, so we just wanted to execute a bit of our plan and make sure we got the job done and get through to the semi final tomorrow.”

In the Men’s pair (M2-) B final, James Vogel and Harry Geffen finished 5th and 11th overall.

Racing continues each day until 28 September and is live streamed on WorldRowing.com. You can also follow the GB Rowing Team instagram for daily updates from China.