Four more Australian boats make next round at Worlds

By Rupert Guinness with the Rowsellas in Shanghai 

The Rowsellas continued their strong start to the 2025 World Rowing Championships in Shanghai on Monday with four more crews qualifying for their next rounds. 

Day Two began with Australian Erik Horrie OAM PLY winning his Heat of the PR1 Men’s Single Sculls to qualify for Friday’s A Final.  

Australia then qualified for Wednesday’s Semi-Finals of the Men’s Fours and Men’s Double Sculls and the Women’s Single Sculls with Romy Cantwell. 

The Women’s Single Sculls book-ended the day for Australia well, with World U23 medallist and World Championship debutant Romy Cantwell placing third in her Heat. 

In still and warm conditions, the race was won by Denmark’s Friday Sanggaard Nielsen in 7:21.10 from Belgian Mazarine Guilbert (7:29.23) followed by Cantwell (7:31.37). 

With the first two in four heats automatically qualifying for the semis, Cantwell needed to be one of the next four fastest finishers from all the heats. She earned the last spot.  

“It was an amazing debut at a senior Worlds,” Cantwell’s coach Jamie McDonald said. 

“It was such a gutsy performance to go out with those experienced scullers, latch on to the stern of the Danish sculler as long as possible and keep pressing and pressing. 

“The willingness to never ever let go got her through now to the Semi-Final.” 

In the PR1 Men’s Single Sculls, Horrie led from start to finish to win in 8:59.77, beating Ukraine’s Roman Polianskyi (9:02.15) and Brazil’s Rene Campos Pereira (9:29.21). 

The win locked in Horrie’s ticket for the A Final on Friday, with the first two placegetters from the two heats automatically qualifying along with the next two fastest finishers. 

“It was good to go out and get 2000m under his belt, see what the track is like, to be able to execute his race and come away with a win,” Horrie’s coach James Loveday said. 

“It puts him in a good position for the Final draw and also gives him confidence.”   

In the Men’s Fours, Nikolas Pender, Fergus Hamilton, Austin Reinehr and Alexander Hill placed second in their Heat but still in the second fastest time of the four Heats. 

Their Heat was won by Great Britain in 5:54.18 from Australia (5:56.54) - the Varese and Lucerne World Cup Silver medallists - and then The Netherlands (5:59.80). 

Great Britain took the lead early, then pushed through the middle to comfortably win. 

But Australia finished well after a challenge from the Dutch to shore up their Semi berth awarded to the first two finishers and four fastest after second place to qualify. 

Stroke Alexander Hill OAM said the heat reaffirmed the standard of the event. 

“We put out a decent first hit-out. We have a fair few good crews here,” Hill said. 

“So, if we keep working on what we are working on, executing those [areas] well, we know we will have some speed when we get to the Semi-Final [on Wednesday].” 

In the Men’s Double Sculls, Oscar McGuinness and Mitchell Reinhard placed fourth to make Wednesday’s Semis. 

The third of three heats, the race was won by Serbia in 6:13.18 from New Zealand (6:14.74) and Belgium (6:15.57), followed by Australia (6:17.34). 

The first two places in each heat automatically qualified for the semis, but Australia went through as one of the next four fastest crews.  

Reinhard was happy with the outcome, saying: “We came here with a pretty good idea of what we wanted from the framework and how we're going to go about rowing the boat. 

“We locked into our framework early, then in the race, we settled into that quite easily. It's just about race craft from here and putting ourselves in the race to finish strong.” 

In the Women’s Four, the crew of Emmie Frederico, Eliza Gaffney, Georgina Rowe, Jacqeline Swick narrowly missed the A Final.

Australia led through the 1500m but were passed by winners New Zealand (6:31.51) and The Netherlands (6:31.92). 

Australia (6:34.30) were third but with first and second and the next two fastest finishers making the semis, their time was 0.3s outside the top six. 

Australian Crews Racing Tomorrow - Day 3 

12.50 (AEST) - Women’s Pairs Semi-Finals: Taylor Caudle, Eleanor Price  

13.13 (AEST) - Men’s Quad Sculls Semi-Finals: Nicholas Blackman, Johnson Daubney, Jackson Free, Alexander Rossi 

13.32 (AEST) - Men’s Pairs D-Final: Fraser Miscamble, Nicholas Smith 

How to Follow the 2025 World Rowing Championships

Here is how to follow the event on mobile, tablet, or desktop:

1. The provisional time table for the events can be found here and entries for all the events can be found here.

2. Live race tracker and LIVE audio will be available for ALL races on www.worldrowing.com.

3. LIVE video streaming will be available on the World Rowing website, Foxtel, and Kayo Sports from Sunday September 21 from 12.00 AEST. The video streaming will start 5 minutes before the first race.

Meet your 2025 World Rowing Championships Rowsellas