Ahead of the 2026 World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam, August 24-30, USRowing has named the boats that will compete. The selections, including formidable line-ups in the eights, fours, and quads—along with Sam Melvin’s arrival as a top sculler—point to what could be the best U.S. results ever at the 2026 World Rowing Championships. More than 850 athletes representing 64 nations will race at the regatta marking the halfway point to the next Olympics, the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
“All our big boats—the fours, the quads, the eights—will be competitive and be competing for medals,” said Josy Verdonkschot, the McLane Family Chief High Performance Officer for USRowing, “which means that we are on the right path. You can expect that we will be contending for medals for both eights. But I will be looking for more than just that.”
Verdonkschot has good reasons to have high expectations.
In Lucerne, at World Rowing Cup III at the end of June, U.S. crews had one of their most successful hours ever: in five A finals, on 12-minute centers, the women’s pair won gold, the men’s pair silver, two U.S. women’s doubles won silver and bronze, the men’s double won bronze, and the women’s four—defending world champions—won gold. USRowing won the overall World Rowing Cup for the first time ever.
“We are creating more depth, which means we’ve got better people, we’ve got more boats,” said Verdonkschot.
One of those people getting better under Verdonkschot’s system is former Columbia University lightweight Sam Melvin.
His time of 6:39, set while winning the A final at the 2026 World Rowing Cup II in Plovdiv, is the fastest time recorded by a U.S. single sculler in World Rowing competition. Jacob Plihal—in the U.S. quad for worlds—finished second in the same race in 6:40. (Clark Dean recorded a 6:45 in the semifinal of the 2018 World Rowing Junior Championships in Račice, a performance World Rowing identifies as the junior—now under-19—world-best time.) Melvin’s Plovdiv times in the progression through the heat, semifinal, and final were 6:49, 6:44, and 6:39.
In Lucerne, Melvin raced the A final against all three Olympic medalists. Germany’s Olympic champion Ollie Zeidler won, Paris silver medalist Yauheni Zalaty finished second, and Melvin won the bronze—ahead of Olympic bronze medalist Simon van Dorp, who set the world-record Concept2 2,000-meter time of 5:33 in March.
“Sam should be able to compete for medals,” said Verdonkschot.
More than 40,000 spectators attended the last time worlds were held in Amsterdam, in 2014, and this year even more might see an historic performance by the U.S. team, led by Dutch native Verdonkschot.
“What we need to achieve is all the boats need to be [in] A final. We have to convert much better than we did in Paris. In Paris, we had a lot of A finals. [But] not enough medals,” said Verdonkschot. “I say we have to win gold medals. I certainly think that the eights will be competitive. So I think this will be one of the first steps back to being on top.”
Located within the Amsterdamse Bos—the city’s forest, three times the size of New York’s Central Park—and near the heart of Amsterdam, the Bosbaan is one of the world’s most historic rowing venues. Opened in 1937, it was The Netherland’s first purpose-built rowing course and has since become a regular venue for elite training camps and major international regattas. The Bosbaan occupies a special place in the sport’s history, having first staged the World Rowing Championships in 1977.
USRowing 2026 World Championships Roster
Men’s Single Sculls
Sam Melvin (Huntington Beach, Calif./Columbia University)
Women’s Single Sculls
Lauren O’Connor (Madison, Wis./University of Wisconsin)
Lightweight Men’s Single Sculls
Justin Schmidt (Westport, Conn./University of Delaware)
Lightweight Women’s Single Sculls
Claire Friedlander (Narberth, Pa./University of Wisconsin)
Lightweight Men’s Double Sculls
Jamie Copus (Winnetka, Ill./Oxford Brookes University)
Sean Richardson (Beverly, Mass./University of Massachusetts)
Men’s Pair
Samuel Halbert (Redmond, Wash./University of Washington)
Blake Vogel (Mars, Pa./ University of Washington)
Women’s Pair
Mia Levy (Des Moines, Iowa/Yale University)
Regina Salmons (Methuen, Mass./University of Pennsylvania)
Men’s Double Sculls
Willem Drescher (Gainesville, Va./Virginia Commonwealth University)
James Fetter (Palo Alto, Calif./Stanford University)
Women’s Double Sculls
Isa Darvin (Madison, Wisconsin/University of Wisconsin)
Grace Joyce (Northfield, Ill./University of Wisconsin)
PR2 Mix2x
Chance Quarry (Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif./University of California, Berkeley)
Natalie Vorel (Oklahoma City, Ok.)
Men’s Four
Chris Carlson (Bedford, N.H./University of Washington)
Peter Chatain (Winnetka, Ill./Stanford University)
Pieter Quinton (Portland, Ore./Harvard University)
Gus Rodriguez (Rye, N.Y./Brown University)
Women’s Four
Molly Bruggeman (Dayton, Ohio/University of Notre Dame)
Teal Cohen (Dallas, Texas/University of Washington)
Azja Czajkowski (Imperial Beach, Calif./Stanford University)
Kate Knifton (Austin, Texas/University of Texas)
PR3 Mixed Four with Coxswain
Max Allemeier (Marietta, Ga./Oregon State University)
Gabriella Bigler (San Diego, Calif./San Diego Rowing Club)
Hannah Diaz (Seattle, Wash./Princeton University)
Skylar Dahl (Minneapolis, Minn./University of Virginia)
Alex Flynn (Wilmington, Mass./Tufts University)
Men’s Quadruple Sculls
Cedar Cunningham (Renton, Wash./Washington State University)
Ben Davison (Inverness, Fla./University of Washington)
Jacob Plihal (Vashon Island, Wash./Northeastern University)
James Wright (Philadelphia, Pa./Stanford University)
Women’s Quadruple Sculls
Emily Kallfelz (Jamestown, R.I./Princeton University)
Evan Park (Bend, Ore./Oregon State University)
Sophia Vitas (Franklin, Wisc./University of Wisconsin)
Kristi Wagner (Weston, Mass./Yale University)
Men’s Eight
Billy Bender (Norwich, Vt./Dartmouth College)
Charles Fargo (Winnetka, Ill./Brown University)
Josh Diggons (Ocean City, N.J./Drexel University)
Mike Herman (Washington, D.C./University of San Diego)
Madison Molitor (Moses Lake, Wash./University of Washington)
Wilson Morton (Summit, N.J./University of California)
Nate Phelps (Ridgefield, Conn./Princeton University)
Rachel Rane (Glencoe, Ill./University of Texas)
Sam Sullivan (Boston, Mass./University of Pennsylvania)
Women’s Eight
Charlotte Buck (Nyack, N.Y./Columbia University)
Etta Carpender (Denver, Colo./University of Texas)
Nina Castagna (Cincinnati, Ohio/University of Washington)
Claire Collins (McLean, Va./Princeton University)
Megan Lee (Natick, Mass./Duke University)
Dahlia Levine (Ardmore, Pa./Brown University)
Jess Thoennes (Highlands Ranch, Colo./University of Washington)
Camille VanderMeer (Elmira, N.Y./Princeton University)
Alexandria Vallancey-Martinson (Corvallis, Ore./United States Naval Academy)
Alternates:
Leo Bessler (Tacoma, Wash./Harvard University)
Holly Drapp (Tampa, Fla./University of Washington)
Alina Hagstrom (Seattle, Wash./Oregon State University)
Margaret Hedeman (Concord, Mass./ Yale University)
Andrew LeRoux (Venice, Fla./Princeton University)
Jesse Ryno (Alpine, N.J./Georgetown University)
Coaches:
Fiona Bourke
Eric Catalano
Sergio Espinoza
Jesse Foglia
Casey Galvanek
Dave Lefebvre
Jasper Liu
Michael Martinov
Caitlin McClain
Ellen Minzner
Beth Noll
Tom Siddall
Josy Verdonkschot
Staff:
Will Daly
Kaity Jackson
Geoff Keller
Deirdre McLoughlin
Ellen Parmley
Matthew Provencher, MD
Peter Wenger, MD
Wendy Wilbur
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