After the first eight titles were awarded on Thursday, the remaining thirteen titles of the U23 World Championship were awarded on Friday 23 August after a series of incredible finals on Martindale Pond which saw several World Championship best times broken.

At the end of the U23 races, 18 nations had won medals, including eleven gold. Germany topped the table with four gold, one silver and three bronze medals, while Great Britain took the same number of gold medals and also secured a bronze medal.

The lightweight singles were the first to fight for medals. For Australian Grace Sypher, it was her third U23 World Championship; she finished sixth in 2022, fourth in 2023 and today she won gold. In the men’s lightweight singles, Spanish double Olympic champion Caetano Hora Pombo prevented Italian Giovanni Borgonovo from defending his U23 World Championship title.

Great Britain won two gold medals in a row when they won both the women’s and men’s coxless fours. An impressive race from the women allowed them to set a new World Championship best time. In the men’s event, the British were able to defend their title in this boat class despite the challenge from Australia.

The Greek lightweight women’s double sculls were absolutely dominant; both Dimitra Kontou and Evangelia Anastasiadou had competed separately at the recent Paris 2024 Olympics, with Kontou taking bronze in that boat class. They crossed the finish line almost eight seconds ahead of Italy. Meanwhile, Ireland’s Ciaran Purdy and Donnacha Keeley took gold in the men’s lightweight double sculls, perhaps inspired by Paul O’Donovan (who will compete in the single sculls on Saturday) and Fintan McCarthy, who won Olympic gold a few weeks ago.

The ladies from Great Britain sealed victory at the Olympic Championships when their women’s eight took the lead from the start and finished almost two seconds ahead of the defending champions from the USA.

The German anthem was played twice as they won gold in both singles. Timo Strache won bronze in the men’s U23 double sculls last year, and today they won gold in the singles. His time of 6:42.08 set a new World Championship best of 0.89 seconds.

Shortly after, Alexandra Foester repeated her performance from the 2021 and 2022 U23 World Championships by winning gold and preventing Switzerland’s Auerlia-Maxima Janzen from defending her title from last year. It was another World Championship best for Foester, who beat the time she set earlier this week by another 5.83 seconds.

It was the fourth gold medal of the day for Great Britain in the final U23 final as the men’s eight led from the start. The USA remained under pressure throughout – they were just 0.37 seconds behind at both the 500m and 1,000m time marks, but in the second half the British were able to pull further ahead and crossed the finish line first to defend their title.

The U23s have finished racing, but the senior (non-Olympic and Paralympic boat classes) and U19 finals are still to come. The finals for the six senior boat classes will take place tomorrow, Saturday, August 24, starting at 2:30 p.m. EST, and the U19 finals will take place on Sunday, August 25, starting at 11:30 a.m. EST.

Start lists, race reports, results and photos can be found at www.worldrowing.com