Women’s Four Wins Gold at World Championships

The U.S. women’s four delivered a dominant performance on the fifth day of the World Rowing Championships, winning their first world title since 2018. In the women’s double sculls, Grace Joyce and Isa Darvin took second in the B Final, finishing eighth overall. In the B Final, the men’s four finished fifth, 11th overall. Lauren O’Connor came in fourth in the women’s single sculls Semifinal.

The women’s four are now World Champions, the first time since 2018. The Americans got off the line in third with Great Britain taking an early lead. The U.S. was undeterred and confident in their pace, slowly chipping away at the lead Great Britain had created in the first 500 meters. At the thousand-meter mark, they edged their bow out ahead and began to put distance between themselves and the rest of the field. In the third 500 meters, Olympian Kate Knifton, Olympian Teal Cohen, Olympian Azja Czajkowski, and Camille VanderMeer dominated, building a gap of open water on the rest of the field. In the final 500 meters, Romania surged, sprinting hard, but the Americans remained composed and crossed the finish line to capture gold in a time of 6:27.71.

Teal Cohen spoke about the race, "We knew the competition was gonna be really fast, but I think we also trust our speed and trust our race plan. We worked really hard this year, so it's great to see it all come together."

"Everyone's out there rowing their best race. We know a lot of the crews we're up against have one hell of a sprint; it's something that we've been practicing as well." Camille VanderMeer said. "At the end of the day, you're gonna feel pressure from everyone all the time, that's what makes it sports."

"I think part of pushing ourselves in training as hard as we do is having a huge amount of respect for your competition," said Azja Czajkowksi. " I think that events like this, where you really come from all over, and the thing that unites us is how hard we work for this sport, and it's a really special experience, how hard all the other women will push themselves to be here today."

Kate Knifton said about their trust in each other, "Everyone's going to have their highs and their lows, and it's about picking each other up when we're at a low and trusting that you're not gonna be at 100% every day, but someone else might be and really playing off each other's energy."

Camille Vandermeer added, "A huge strength of our boat throughout training has been our consistency, and we build that through our faith in each other and the fact that we actually genuinely really like each other as people as well as teammates. I think that that's definitely made it easier to you know build off of that going into racing."

In the women’s double sculls, Olympian Grace Joyce and Isa Darvin showed grit and determination in a tightly contested race. The Americans settled into fourth but stayed within striking distance of the leaders. In the second 500 meters, they pushed through Great Britain and began dueling with Ireland. Uzbekistan had built a 1.5-second lead heading into the final stretch, but the U.S. and Ireland closed fast. Joyce and Darvin launched an explosive sprint, going bow-to-bow with Ireland in the closing strokes. Ireland edged ahead to win by just 0.73 seconds, with the U.S. taking second in 7:00.93. The crew placed eighth overall in the event.

Grace Joyce said this about their race, “We just stuck to our race plan and trusted in our fitness. Coming off the heats finishing on the wrong side of where we wanted to end up for that qualifying position, we just came together to really solidify our plan, and our goal was to execute a better sprint. I think we definitely pulled that off through the second thousand, so yeah, pretty happy with that.”

Isa Darvin added, “I think we're proud of you, know, just getting better throughout the race week and have stuff to work on for the future, and just keep getting better.”

Olympian Lauren O’Connor finished fourth in the women’s single sculls semifinal. She got off to a strong start, keeping her bow among the top four. In the third 500 meters, she traded blows with Germany while reeling in Australia, who had taken an early lead. O’Connor and the Australian stayed bow-to-bow entering the final 500 meters, separated by only a few inches. In the sprint, O’Connor surged ahead to claim fourth place. She will race in Sunday’s B Final.

The men’s four finished fifth in the B Final, placing 11th overall. The crew got off to a strong start, settling into second place and staying just inches behind the leaders, Croatia, through the first 1,000 meters. The third 500 meters proved decisive, as the Americans were unable to hold off their opponents. They ultimately crossed the line in fifth.

Justin Schmidt will race in the men’s lightweight single sculls B Final at 1:33 a.m. The PR3 mixed coxed four will open the A Finals tomorrow morning at 2:18 a.m., followed by Michelle Sechser’s gold-medal race in the lightweight women’s single sculls at 2:33 a.m. The women’s eight and men’s eight will race at 3:05 a.m. and 3:18 a.m., respectively. The day will conclude with mixed events, the mixed double sculls at 10:05 p.m. and the mixed eight at 10:25 p.m. Watch on Overnght or on World Rowing. Results and schedule can be found here. 

USRowing would like to thank Filippi Lido, the Official Boat Supplier for the U.S. Senior and Para Rowing National Teams. Under the agreement, Filippi is providing USRowing a fleet of boats for international competitions, including the World Rowing Cup regattas, World Rowing Championships, Olympic Games, and Paralympic Games, as well as a domestic training fleet for the USRowing Training Centers.