World Rowing Championships Recap
On the international rowing calendar, the biggest event of the year took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands from Aug. 24-30.
The 2026 World Rowing Championships were hosted at the historic Bosbaan for the first time since 2014 and featured 12 Olympic boat class categories, four international boat classes for lightweight rowers, two mixed boat classes and five para rowing categories. The event saw more than 850 athletes from 64 nations compete as the world’s best crews race for championship titles.
Team Canada sent a team of 20 athletes to the event (6 men, 14 women), which included nine athletes with Ontario-rowing roots. The top-placing boats for Canada were the women’s double of Grace Vandenbroek (Peterborough RC) & Alizee Brien and the women’s eight which each reached the A Final and achieved a fifth-place finish.
Vandenbroek and Brien earned their place in the A Final with a third-place finish in their opening round heat, followed by another third-place finish in the semi-final. In the final, they were 1.5 seconds behind the race leader Netherlands at the 500m mark but gradually fell off the pace to finish fifth in a time of 6:54.82. The women’s eight advanced straight to the A Final after a second-place finish in their opening round heat, finishing in a time of 6:10.07, just over two seconds behind first place Great Britain. In the final, they finished in fifth in a time of 6:00.26.
The host Netherlands was the top performing country of the regatta, earning the most gold medals with four, and the most overall medals with ten. The United States came second in overall medals with nine, followed by Great Britain with eight.
Canadian Results
Women’s 2x – Grace Vandenbroek (Peterborough RC) & Alizee Brien – 5th place
Women’s 8+ – Cassidy Deane (Kingston RC), Alexis Cronk, Kristen Siermachesky (Brockville RC), Alexandra Pidgeon, Caroline De Paiva, Avalon Wastenays, Maylie Valiquette, Sally Jones, Kristen Kit (St. Catharines RC) – 5th place
Women’s 4x – Caroline De Paiva, Marilou Duvernay Tardif, Kristen Siermachesky (Brockville RC), Katie Clark – 11th place
Men’s 1x – Trevor Jones (Peterborough RC) – 19th place
Men’s 4- – Steven Rosts (Ridley Graduate BC), Axel Eiger Ewashko, Ryan Clegg (Western University), Samuel Stewart (London Western RC) – 13th place
For full results visits World Rowing
Picture is property of Rowing Canada Aviron
