Rowing NEWS

4 September 2011: The final day of racing in Bled saw Olympic Champions Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase and successfully defend their world title in the lightweight men's double.

And there was second gold for the GB team when Alex Gregory, Rick Egington, Tom James and Matt Langridge regained the world title in the men’s fours.

Together with medals in the Paralympic boat classes boat classes the overall GB tally in Bled totalled seven golds, three silvers and four bronzes.

The final of the lightweight doubles was one of the most exciting finales to a World Championships that Britain has ever experienced.

Storm Uru and Peter Taylor of New Zealand were world champions in 2009, but were beaten by Hunter and Purchase on their home water in 2010 and were looking to reverse that result in Bled.

The GB double rocketed off the start at 53 strokes a minute against the Kiwis at 55, and although the Olympic champions led through the first 800m New Zealand squeezed through at halfway. For the next 500m it was neck-and-neck as each crew attempted to seize the advantage, but the New Zealanders never gave up, and as the stroke rates reached 43 down the final stretch Hunter and Purchase were first across the line.

“We just waited, and when we put the hammer down you saw what happened" said Hunter afterwards.

The GB men, who took the U23 title just five weeks ago in Amsterdam, were involved in a tough tussle with New Zealand before coming back to claim the gold.

"At 600m gone I looked around for New Zealand and saw that they were about three-quarters of a length up on us and I knew we had to keep working and working and that they would pay for it at the end", said Emery.

The GB men's eight, with Dan Ritchie at stroke and Alex Partridge at 4, were coxed by Phelan Hill, and the crew knows that it has a place for London after taking silver today ahead of Canada in bronze but behind Germany.

Dan Ritchie said he felt the home crowd next year could make the difference against a German crew that beat them last year and again today. Only this time round the gap was bigger and the rest of the world was closer behind Britain.

"Don't underestimate the power of the home crowd", said Ritchie.

The GB women's quad with Annie Vernon and Debbie Flood as the stern pair, won today’s B final to secure a place for the boat at the Olympic Games.

The championships on the picturesque lake Bled are doubling up as the major Olympic qualifying regatta, where the top crews in each event automatically gain a place for their country at London 2012.

But the women’s quad world champions were eclipsed by the USA and China in Tuesday’s repechages, and the crew were relegated to the B final, where only an outright win will earn them a qualifying place at next year’s Olympic regatta.

It was a different story for Leander’s Tom Solesbury and Steve Rowbotham in their own repechage for the men’s quads, where they came from behind to snatch a semifinal place just 0.01 sec behind New Zealand.

Earlier in the week the GB men’s four, who are looking to regain the world title after a shock defeat by France last year in New Zealand, picked up the pace in their heat and motored into the lead. Leander’s Alex Gregory, Matt Langridge, and Ric Egington with Molesey’s Tom James went on to take a clear-water victory and book the only semi-final qualifying slot from the heat, consigning the French world champions to the repechage.

“It was good to get our first race out of the way. We've done some awesome stuff on training camp in Portugal and now we need to step on from today", said Egington.

"We will now make improvements as the week goes on and as we move towards the semis. We need to keep our minds in race mode", added Gregory.

Olympic champion and former Leander captain Mark Hunter has a patchy season so far in the lightweight double with Zac Purchase. The GB men, who added the world title to their collection last year in New Zealand, were fourth in Munich at the world cup but have not raced together since as Purchase has been battling a post-viral episode.

In Bled they bumped along with leaders France to the halfway point where they were just two-tenths behind but then moved into a lead at 1500m to take a comfortable victory and reach the quarter-finals.

The ‘Red Express’ of Marcus Bateman and Matt Wells made sure of the only semi-final qualifying slot in the men’s double by moving through to a strong lead in the second half of their own race and going on to win.

Seven seconds separated the GB men's pair of Leander’s Pete Reed and Molesey’s Andrew Triggs Hodge from the trailing field with 500m to go of their opening heat. The duo looked strong and relaxed throughout with no shadow of a doubt that they would take the only semi-final place on offer.

Men's chief coach Jurgen Grobler said his priority was developing a consistent team right across the Olympic events, but that five medals for the men’s heavyweights in Lucerne had been ‘very special’.

“Every crew has a good chance to race for medals, and a year before the Olympics that’s quite important” he said.

But the crew he coaches – Leander’s Pete Reed and Molesey’s Andy Triggs Hodge in the men’s pair – will have their work cut out to achieve anything other more than silver. The event is dominated by Eric Murray and Hamish Bond of New Zealand, who have won every encounter with the GB men over the last three seasons, while the recently re-formed Olympic silver medallists from Canada are still a force to be reckoned with.

The GB men's , coxed by Leander’s Phelan Hill and stroked by his clubmate Dan Ritchie, is the same line-up as the crew which won silver at the Munich World Cup in May and bronze in Lucerne.

Injury and illness have taken their toll on many top contenders, including Leander’s Frances Houghton, who took the world title last year in the women’s quad scull. Houghton raced in New Zealand with Olympic silver medallists Debbie Flood and Annie Vernon and Gloucester’s Beth Rodford, but Imperial College’s Melanie Wilson replaced Houghton in Lucerne, where the crew won the silver medal. All five athletes have been named for a group that will eventually race as both a quad and single in Bled.

The GB Rowing team's men's sculling line-up for Bled shows the progress made in this area of the sport in the past six years. All three crews could be medal

contenders with Leander’s Matt Wells and Marcus Bateman having savoured a World Championships podium finish in the double scull last year.

Wells is also an Olympic bronze medallist from Beijing and the men's quadruple scull, coached by Leander’s Mark Banks, showed their potential once more by taking silver in Lucerne, defeating the reigning world champions in the process. The quad features Well's Beijing double scull crew-mate Stephen Rowbotham with Sam Townsend, Bill Lucas and Tom Solesbury.

Britain's women's eight just fell short of the Lucerne podium and the eight rowers who competed there are now part of a group of nine who are subject to further internal trials, and women’s chief coach Paul Thompson confirmed that final selection would only be made after training camps in Breisach, Germany, and Varese, Italy.