2022 World Rowing Congress attributes 2025 World Rowing Championships to Shanghai

The 2022 World Rowing Congress was held Monday, 26 September in Prague, Czech Republic. Delegates from 39 member federations were present, while 31 registered to attend virtually. Voting was facilitated by the well-known electronic voting service provider Lumi.

World Rowing President Jean-Christophe Rolland opened the Congress and presented his report to the delegates, followed by reports from the Executive Committee Members, Chairs of the specialist Commissions and Continental Representatives.

The Congress was asked to vote on the attribution of future World Rowing Championships for 2025 and 2026. After a detailed presentation by the chair of the Events Commission, the World Rowing Congress followed the recommendation of the World Rowing Council and decided to attribute the 2025 World Rowing Championships to Shanghai, China.

The Congress also decided to provisionally attribute the 2026 World Rowing Championships to Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Following the Strategic Event Attribution Process (SEAP), the World Rowing Council has also decided to attribute the following events :

• 2024 World Rowing Cup I – Varese, Italy
• 2024 World Rowing Cup III – Poznan, Poland
• 2025 World Rowing Under 23 Championships – Poznan, Poland
• 2025 World Rowing Under 19 Championships – Trakai, Lithuania
• 2026 World Rowing Under 23 Championships – Duisburg, Germany
• 2026 World Rowing Under 19 Championships – Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Five Commission chairs were re-elected to their positions:

• Rosie Mayglothling (GBR), Chair of the Competitive Commission
• Eva Szanto (HUN), Chair of the Events Commission
• Patrick Rombaut (BEL), Chair of the Umpire Commission
• Rebecca Thomas Orr (CAN), Chair of the Para-Rowing Commission
• Ronald Chen (USA), Chair of the Masters Commission

A new chair was elected to the Equipment and Technology Commission as the incumbent, Paul Fuchs, did not stand for re-election – having reached the age limit under the World rowing statutes. Mathias Binder (SUI) was elected unopposed as Chair of the Equipment and Technology Commission.

The World Rowing Congress has also unanimously decided to name former Executive Director Matt Smith Honorary Council Member. A tribute to Matt Smith was made by World Rowing Honorary President Denis Oswald.

A new member has been welcomed into World Rowing. The Mauritania Rowing Federation has been added as a member of World Rowing – the total number of member national rowing federations is now 157.

Two presentations were made to the Delegates. Stuart Orr, Freshwater lead at WWF International, has re-emphasised the strategic partnership between World Rowing and WWF, while Nic Couchman from Charles Russell Speechlys and Alan Switzer from Deloitte updated the attendees about the new Strategic Commercial Partnership Project launched recently by World Rowing.

The 2023 World Rowing Congress will be held on Monday 11 September 2023 in Belgrade, Serbia.

For all media enquiries please contact Brian Orsini, Head of Communications : brian.orsini@worldrowing.com.