James Robson is raring to wrap up a perfect year for the GB men’s four squad at the 2026 World Rowing Championships.
Robson’s squad enter the World Championships in Bosbaan, Amsterdam, as the clear favourites to claim the world title, the defending world champions undefeated in international competition this season with World Rowing Cup I and III titles.
The 32-year-old from Bury St Edmunds, now based in West London, is driven on by the pressure of being in the quartet to beat.
“I'm excited to jump into the fire and get racing,” Robson said. “We know that there's a target on our back and that people have been away training incredibly hard to try and beat us.
“One of the great things for us is that we're incredibly process-orientated. We've just been trying to get better incrementally day by day.
“Success at the World Championships would be executing the race and executing our performances. Christian [Felkel], our coach, will often tell us that if someone can go out there and beat us, then we'll go and shake their hands and congratulate them.
"We can't control how quick they go. We can only control how quick we go.”
A Boat Race winner with Cambridge University in 2025, the Leander Club member is relishing the opportunity to meet the Dutch head-on on their own patch.
“There's quite a lot of rivalry in the rowing world between the Brits and the Dutch, it will be a hostile environment,” the Oxbridge alum said.
“The closest I've got to racing in a hostile environment is The Boat Race, but you're pretty confident that 50% of the people along the bank are cheering for you.
“I don't think we're going to be lucky enough to have 50% of the fans in Amsterdam cheering for us, I'm pretty sure my family will be trying to make up the decibels!
“Having the crowd against you and making a statement would be pretty nice.”
Robson started rowing during his final year at Oundle School and he had his fledgling days on the water at Newcastle University Boat Club. The British four crew is full of familiar faces for Robson.
He met Dan Graham in the north east a decade ago and raced alongside Douwe De Graaf and George Bourne at Cambridge University before international glory.
But the Suffolk native thought that his rowing career was in doubt when in 2022, he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.
After opening up about his diagnosis of the common heart disorder, which causes an irregular and fast heartbeat, Robson learned he was not alone and that his days on the water weren’t over.
He revealed: “When I found out that I had atrial fibrillation, suddenly people who had raced for Great Britain came out of the woodwork and said that they were diagnosed during their rowing careers or later in life.
"It was really heartening to know that this is a chapter in my life, not the whole career shutting down. I didn't have to pack up my Olympic ambitions because I had a heart condition.
"The medical team at Caversham did an amazing job to make me feel like it was going to be something that I could manage, but that was all it was going to be, and it was never going to be something that stopped me.
“I think the main thing that I hope people take away from my experience is that a heart condition doesn't have to bookend someone's time in sport, at whatever level.
“I've been very fortunate being open about my diagnosis, where people have come up to me and said, ‘I've got a heart condition' and they're still rowing in their 50s and 60s.’”
Robson was a reserve for the men’s eight at the 2024 Paris Games and knows that while qualification for Los Angeles 2028 ramps up at the 2027 World Championships next year, the home stretch to California is close.
Proud is an understatement, if you ask him what wearing the GB vest means.
“It's the honour of a lifetime. Everyone has had this massively long and unique journey to get to where they are at the World Championships," Robson added.
“For me, I started the sport quite late, so it felt like I committed basically all of my 20s into the sport, until I got my first senior international vest.
“It's incredibly special for me. And the team here is really good at making you feel like you're part of this long history of British oarsmen and women.
“It's very special to feel like you're the latest iteration of the British Rowing team, and that the team will carry on after you leave, you're trying to leave it in a slightly better state than where you found it.
“It's incredibly, incredibly special to pull on the British vest when you're sat there on the start line, and you hear the roll call saying, ‘Great Britain.’”
Sportsbeat 2026