Holder: R.Liu Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Entries: 17 (To be reduced to 12 by Qualifying races)
All eyes in this event will be on Lauren Henry (Leicester Rowing Club). She is the reigning Olympic champion in the quad and raced in this event in 2021, losing in the final to her Paris Olympic teammate, Lola Anderson. She made her senior international debut in 2023, was part of the quad that won the World Rowing Championships, and followed that up in 2024 with the Olympic title. In 2025, though, she has really stepped on and emerged from the shadow of crew sculling boats. She has raced in the single at both the European Rowing Championships and the Varese World Rowing Cup and has utterly dominated the event. She set a new European Best Time in Plovdiv, finishing within two seconds of Neykova’s long-standing World Best Time. She also won in Varese, and no one has gotten within seven seconds of her. She is possibly the standout athlete in the whole of World Rowing at the moment.
If GB has the number one open-weight sculler in the world at the moment, they can also claim to have the world’s number one lightweight, Imogen Grant. She is also entered in The Princess Royal Challenge Cup and will be racing in the colours of Upper Thames Rowing Club. This will be her third attempt to win this competition; she was the losing finalist in 2022 and in 2018 was knocked out on Thursday. The 2024 lightweight double Olympic champion is officially a member of the GB team, although her duties as a junior doctor have kept her away from the international circuit this season. She has been racing domestically and took the championship singles title at the Metropolitan Regatta (which, surprisingly, was her first-ever race on Dorney Lake) and Henley Women’s Regatta. A showdown between Henry and Grant would be an absolute crowd favourite. It will also be interesting to see where Grant fits into the GB team as the Olympiad progresses.
The leading overseas contender will likely be Viktorija Senkute (Lithuanian Rowing Federation, Lithuania). She is the Olympic bronze medallist from Paris and, in 2023, made the A-final at the World Rowing Championships. She raced at the European Rowing Championships this season, finishing in fifth.
Another strong overseas contender is Laura Gourley (Rowing Australia, Australia). She made her senior debut in 2023, placing eighth in the double at the World Rowing Championships. She was a part of the quad that came eighth at the Paris Olympic Games. This season marks her first in the single scull, and she finished 18th in Varese.
2025 is Frida Sanggaard Nielsen’s first year in a sculling boat. Racing for Bagsværds Roklub, Denmark, she has far more experience as a sweep rower, including a World Rowing Championship bronze medal in the coxless four from 2019 and two Olympic appearances in the boat. However, if her performance in the single this season is anything to go by, she will become a major player in the smallest boat. She won bronze at the European Rowing Championships, delivering Denmark their first women’s single championship medal since the 2012 Olympic Games.
Another current senior international amongst the entries is Claire De Kok (Hollandia Roeiclub, The Netherlands). She was part of the Netherlands’ eight at the European Rowing Championships and the opening World Rowing Cup. She is replaced in the eight racing in The Remenham Challenge Cup by Lisanne Van der Lelij, so she is entered in The Princess Royal Challenge Cup. She is no stranger to sculling, having won U23 bronze in the quad in 2023 and finished eighth in the same boat class at the 2024 European Rowing Championships.
Racing for Rowing South Africa is Paige Badenhorst. She raced for Cambridge in the winning Boat Race crew in 2022 (a crew stroked by Imogen Grant) and was selected to represent South Africa in the single at the Paris Olympic Games, where she finished 14th. In 2023, she raced in the double alongside Kate Williams, and their bronze medal at the opening World Rowing Cup was South Africa’s first women’s medal since 2016.
Canada last won this event back in 2012, and they have one sculler competing this year, Shannon Kennedy (Shawnigan Lake School, Canada). She was a member of the Canadian quad that just missed out on Olympic qualification for Paris. In 2022, she competed at the World Rowing Championships in the single, placing 16th.
Among the non-international squad races entered, the leading challenger looks to be Amelia Hempleman-Adams. She lost out to Imogen Grant in the final of the George Innes Cup at Henley Women’s Regatta and will have to navigate the perilous qualifiers this coming Friday.
Prediction
I can’t see anyone beating Lauren Henry, and with the right conditions, we could see her threaten the course record. A win for Henry would only be the third-ever by a GB sculler. The question is, then, who will she face in the final? My heart would love to see her and Grant face off, but my head says it is more likely to be either Senkute or Sanggaard Nielsen (depending on the draw).
