21 September: Three Leander athletes brought home silver medals from the European Championships in Greece but there was disappointment for Olympic silver medallist Debbie Flood, who finished fifth in the double scull.

With stormy weather forecast on the 2004 Olympic rowing course at Schinias the organisers took the bold step of compacting the race programme into just two days, instead of the original three.

The British women's eight, including Leander's Jo Cook, Vicky Myers and Rachel Loveridge, made the best of the conditions in their straight final. As Romania led from start to finish the British crew eased past the fading Ukraine to come home just adrift of Romania, ten seconds ahead of the rest of the field, to take second place.

The GB men's eight, who had to race twice on Friday, never really found their rhythm in the final, where they finished sixth, while Debbie Flood and Tina Stiller, competing as a scratch crew in the women's doubles, finished fifth.

GB CREWS in MARATHON

(Leander athletes in bold)

Figures in each column indicate position in that race with progression to next round

17 September: Olympic silver medalist Debbie Flood becomes the first member of Team GB in Beijing to get back into action this week when she teams up with Olympic reserve Tina Stiller to contest the women's double scull at the European Championships taking place in Athens.

"I just love racing" said Flood of the decision to get back in a boat so soon after the Games. "I always said I wanted to do the Europeans" she added.

The move marks a return to the Athens course on which she won Olympic silver four years ago as a member of the GB women’s quad scull, the same event in which she won silver in Beijing.

Debbie Flood heads a GB squad of 32 athletes, of whom one third will be Leander-based.

The European championships, which fell into abeyance after the inaugural World Championships in 1962, were revived last year at the behest of several eastern European nations, for whom the regatta meant additional central government funding for the sport. While nations such as Romania and Bulgaria have fielded their top internationals the countries of western Europe have so far tended to boat mostly development and under-23 athletes, for whom the opportunity to compete offers testing competition against the toughest of opponents.

ENDS