Australia Win Five Medals at Holland Beker Regatta

The ‘Australia A’ team won three gold medals on the final day of the international Holland Beker Regatta in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Drifting weed on the Bosbaan course where the 2026 World Rowing Championships will be held in August 24-30 again impacted the performance of many crews, including those of the ‘Australia A’ team.

But the ‘Australia A’ team still managed to win three gold medals – in the Men’s Pair, Men’s Four and Women’s Eight – to add to the gold and bronze medals that they won on day one in the Women’s Eight and Men’s Pair respectively, to finish the regatta with a medal tally of five.

For the ‘Australia A’ squad members – who are predominately graduating students studying abroad – the Holland Beker Regatta was the first opportunity to be considered for the World Championships team, with World Cup III in Lucerne, Switzerland on June 26-28 the next opportunity.

Rowing Australia (RA) will name the World Championships team on July 24.

RA Performance Director Paul Thompson MBE said: “The most pleasing part of today’s racing and results was the way the crews learnt from yesterday’s races and were able to deliver when it counted in today’s finals.

“They can all now look to next week’s World Cup with confidence as they move into the most competitive World Cup of the season where the racing will be faster and the fields deeper.”

Australia A’s first Gold was in the Men’s Pair by Henry Blackwell and Benjamin Scott who raced in the Men’s Four on Saturday.

Blackwell and Scott made the A-Final by winning their heat. They led through 1000m, fell to second place at 1500m but finished strong for first place.

Behind the Australians whose winning time (7:05.20) was the fastest of two heats were Uliege (78:14.89) in second and Maas Bremer (7:21.95), third.

In the A-Final, they did not let anyone back into the fray as they did in the heats and won (7:08.37) from Uliege (7:11.15) followed by Brazil (7:16.07).

In the Men’s Four, ‘Australia A’ boated a re-jigged crew of Mackenzie Thompson (New South Wales Institute of Sport; NSWIS), Alexander Baroni, Ben Canham OLY and Charles Batrouney.

Baroni and Canham won Bronze in the Pair on day one, and joined the Four when Blackwell and Scott agreed race the Pair on day two instead.

While regarded as a favourite on Sunday, the new ‘Australia A’ Four still had to fight back into the top three of their heat to make the A-Final.

The trigger for their late charge home from sixth place was fired when their boat caught weed soon after 1000m when they had a comfortable lead.

Racing in Lane 4, the Australian boat suddenly slowed. They lost steerage, causing them to veer across two lanes into Lane 6.

After discarding the weed, they fought back to finish third (6:34.88) behind the heat winners, Netherlands (6:33.77) and Mercantile (6:34.47).

In the Women’s Eight, the ‘Australian A’ crew that won the event on day one were in a class of their own in winning back-to-back Golds.

Unlike day one, where the event had heats and an A-Final, day two was a straight final with the two biggest threats to Australia – Aegir and Netherlands – not entered.

The crew of Sophie Barr, Taylor Caudle (NSWIS), Jean Mitchell OLY, Gabriela Morton Van Eybergen, Sophie Houston, Sarah Marriott, Caitlin McManus Barrett (NSWIS), Star Rose Miller, and (cox) Anna O’Hanlon led from the start to win (6:31.95) convincingly from Melbourne University Boat Club (7:03.73) in second, St Edwards School (7:05.86) third and Denmark (7:22.85) fourth.

Images: Patrick Boere