Jovana Arsic Wins Single Sculls Bronze in Varese

The race was decided only in the second half of the course. Lithuania’s Viktorija Senkute led through the first half, while Britain’s Lauren Henry was as low as fourth after the opening 500 metres. Then she picked up the pace, moved into second at the halfway mark, pulled clear on her own and took gold.

Jovana Arsic spent that same stretch doing her own job, calm and without breaking rhythm. She took third place early and never left it across any of the four split times.

She crossed the line third. Bronze in the single sculls, on the last day of the senior European Rowing Championships.

Arsic rowed the 2,000 metre final in 7:21.58. Henry took the title in 7:15.11, and Senkute claimed silver in 7:19.22. The Serbian rower finished 6.47 seconds behind the winner and 2.36 seconds behind second place. The race was held on the Schiranna regatta course on Lake Varese in the Italian city of Varese, where the championship ran from July 31 to August 2.

How much is this bronze really worth?

More than the number on the scoreboard suggests, for two reasons.

The first is the name above her. Henry is the Olympic champion in the quad, and on Lake Varese she defended the title she won in Plovdiv at last year’s continental championship. This wasn’t a start list where a medal was simply there for the taking.

The second is the volume of racing behind it. Before the final in Varese, Arsic had already gone through three races, and the single sculls is a discipline where every one of them is paid for in the legs. That her form wasn’t a one-off had already been shown earlier this season, when she won gold at the World Cup in Plovdiv.

“I’m satisfied with the result, especially considering that I rowed three races at a very high level at this championship. This gives me extra confidence to keep working toward the World Championship, which awaits us in Amsterdam in three weeks. Now I’ve seen that I can be a contender for a medal at the Worlds,” Arsic said in a statement carried by the Rowing Federation of Serbia.

She works with coach Nebojsa Ilic, and continental championships have become the stage where she rarely comes back empty handed. Bronze in Bled in 2023, gold in Szeged in 2024, now bronze in Varese. Three medals at three straight European championships.

Serbia’s second medal in two days

We wrote about the first one yesterday. Martin Mackovic and Nikolaj Pimenov won gold in the double sculls in a time of 6:04.45, in a race the rest of the field had no answer for.

With two boats in the final and two medals, the Rowing Federation of Serbia’s team is leaving Varese with a result that doesn’t come around often. Arsic pointed to that herself when she looked back on the final.

“Today’s final went very well. I’m pleased with how I started, but I can see I still need a bit more confidence to take my races to an even higher level. All in all, I showed that I can be a contender for a medal at the Worlds. I want to thank the Ministry of Sport, the Olympic Committee of Serbia and the Rowing Federation of Serbia, as well as my club Partizan, for their support. I’m also glad that our team, the Rowing Federation of Serbia team, did very well at this Europeans. I’d like to take this chance to congratulate Mackovic and Pimenov on their gold medal,” Arsic added.

What comes next

Amsterdam, in three weeks. The World Championship is the next stop, and the field there widens to include names that didn’t even start in Europe, above all New Zealand and the United States.

What Arsic takes from Varese isn’t just a medal but something she had been missing until now: proof that in the final of a top-level field she can hold a position for all 2,000 metres rather than defend one. In the single sculls, where everything is settled in the second half of the race, that’s the difference between taking part and being a contender.

If she repeats this kind of start in Amsterdam and adds the few tenths of a second she says she still needs, there’s room for a medal. Not guaranteed, but there.