Spain Retakes All-Time Lead at European Championships, and Five Countries Win First Medals

Host Spain won four out of the seven events at this year’s European Rowing Beach Sprint Championships, plus silver in two of the other three, to dominate the 2026 medal table. The performance in La Línea de la Concepción also means Spain leaps back ahead of Italy in the all-time standings, with nine golds, eight silvers and three bronzes to its Mediterranean rival’s total of six, one and two, respectively.

The Spanish performance was lead by 2022 and 2023 mixed double world champions (and 2022 European champions) Ander Martín and Esther Briz, who this time were competing individually in the solos. Martín defended his 2025 European title, and this win takes him to No. 1 in the world rankings with 2,160 points. His closest rival, the USA’s Chris Bak, has 1,600, although he is the reigning world champion. Briz is returning to beach sprint after winning the Boat Race with Oxford University and the Henley Women’s Regatta in the pair earlier this year, but her gold medal jumps her up to No. 4 in the world, and sets high expectations for world championships a month from now.

In the mixed double. the only event in which Spain didn’t come away with a medal, Julia Tertuente and Moritz Wolff won Germany’s first senior gold at European championships. The two raced separately at last year’s worlds in the solos, and even though they held reigning world champions Lithuania to second place in La Línea, don’t expect them to race together in Qingdao. German coach Adrian Bretting has his sights set on Los Angeles, and is determined to offer equal opportunities to his top athletes for now. So at worlds in China, Wolff and Tertuente will again compete in the solos, with teammates Franz Werner and Sophie Leupold back in the double.

Even given Spain’s success at home, the European championships appear to have taken a step forward in competitiveness over the last two years. In Antalya, Turkey, last year, 12 different teams made the podium. This year was almost the same, with 11 different countries going home with at least one medal. And five national teams won their first ever medals at Europeans.

Greece’s Iason Mouselimis and Hungary’s Janka Demko upset Spain’s rowers in the A finals for the junior men’s and women’s solos, respectively. Finland’s Joel Naukkarinen, a four-time world champion indoor rower, took silver in the men’s solo, while Poland picked up two bronze medals thanks to Jagna Jurdziak in the junior women’s solo and Dominika Baranowska and Adam Bujnowski in the mixed double.

Ukraine also goes home with its first medal at this level, a bronze in the junior mixed double won by Kseniia Ratushniak and Maksym Sivko. Ratushniak says their success is due to Ukraine’s “undefeatable” spirit. She is from Odesa, a city that has come under repeated attack by Russia during its illegal war on Ukraine. The roof of her boathouse is littered with holes from shrapnel, and in 2023 her club’s fleet of boats was destroyed by Russian shelling. (And replaced by the generosity of Dutch rowers at the Viking Rowing Club in Utrecht and the Royal Maas Yacht Club in Rotterdam a year later.)

Ukraine, whose rowers won a bronze in the junior women’s double at worlds in Genoa in 2024, won’t be traveling to world championships this year because of the difficulty to raise sufficient funding in the middle of the long running war. Even the team’s travel to La Línea was dangerous and complicated, with missile-strike train delays.

The podiums from the 2026 European Rowing Beach Sprint Championships were:

CW1x:

1. Esther Briz – Spain
2. Magdalena Lobnig – Austria
3. Laura McKenzie – Great Britain

CM1x:

1. Ander Martín – Spain
2. Joel Naukkarinen – Finland
3. Franz Werner – Germany

CMix2x:

1. Julia Tertuente, Moritz Wolff – Germany
2. Martyna Kazlauskaite, Dominykas Jancionis – Lithuania
3. Dominika Baranowska, Adam Bujnowski – Poland

PR3 CMix2x:

1. Rocio Fraguela, Marcos Delgado – Spain

U19 CW1x:

1. Janka Demko – Hungary
2. Marina Lopez – Spain
3. Jagna Jurdziak – Poland

U19 CM1x:

1. Iason Mouselimis – Greece
2. Xavier Torres – Spain
3. Davide Gazzola – Italy

U19 CMix2x:

1. Blanca Lopez, Alfredo Mena – Spain
2. Alexander Rittenbacher, Esther Schoeberl – Austria
3. Kseniia Ratushniak, Maksym Sivko – Ukraine