WORLD CUP REGATTA

Amsterdam, Netherlands

22 - 24 June 2007

Report by Leander Press Officer Robert Treharne Jones

Photography (c) Peter Spurrier

Action from Amsterdam (left to right): Zac Purchase and Leander captain Mark Hunter secured their second silver medal in a row in the lightweight double sculls; the two GB men's eights face the cameras after winning gold and bronze for the first time; the GB women's quad (including Leander's Debbie Flood, third from left) were disappointed with the silver medal after the Chinese opposition proved too strong; Steve Rowbotham and Matt Wells sculled another storming finish but were squeezed out of the top spot by the Estonians.

Leander athletes, sponsored by Invesco Perpetual, came home from the second World Cup regatta in Amsterdam with eight gold medals to their credit, having created history on their visit to the Dutch capital.

For the first time Britain entered two eights for the premier event at the regatta - the first was the regular GB line-up, with Leander's Josh West, Tom Stallard and Rick Egington on board.

But the second had been put together by GB chief coach Jurgen Grobler as a one-off. The so-called Super Eight included the GB world champion men's four as well as Leander's Matt Langridge and Colin Smith who won the men's pairs at their first competitive outing in Linz three weeks ago. With Marcus Bateman and James Orme on board the crew included no less than seven Leander men, in a trial which Grobler announced was 'just a bit of fun'.

But when the Super Eight won their heat on the first day of the regatta to qualify directly for the final the crowd knew they were witnessing something special. In Sunday's final Grobler's crew took the gold medal while the regular eight scored a season's best with the bronze. Britain had never before qualified two eights for a world cup final and never won two medals.

In the double sculls final Leander's Matt Wells and Stephen Rowbotham, who won gold in Linz, lined up alongside the two crews who beat them back into third position at last year's world championships - Slovenia and France.

At the half-way mark the Slovenians were in the lead, tracked by Australia and Great Britain, but Wells and Rowbotham pushed before the 1500m to overhaul the Aussies by a narrow margin with Slovenia still in front. The British double rowed through the Slovenians with 175m to go before Estonia came up on the inside by the grandstands to pip Great Britain at the line.

"Full credit to Estonia", said Rowbotham after the race. "We didn't expect that and they put in a really good race", he said.

"For us, it was the first time that we beat the Slovenians in a world cup race so its a step on", added the man who dedicated his medal to his uncle David Rowbotham who passed away in the week leading up to Amsterdam. "He was a big part of my support team", he said.

Amsterdam was the regatta in which China began to reveal its potential Beijing 2008 firepower more than ever before with a large number of podium places, especially the women's quad sculls. China led the British world champions, with Leander's Debbie Flood on board, and despite pulling back to an overlap on the line there was despondency from the British who won an unaccustomed silver.

Nothing much separated the top five crews in the women's eight final at the 500m which Britain, stroked by Leander's Lou Reeve, reached in fourth place. The crew also knew they had a taller task here than the one they faced when winning silver behind Germany in Linz.

Halfway through the 2000m course they were holding onto fourth but the Netherlands had overtaken China and Germany to take the lead. The Dutch continued to build their lead whilst Germany made a move on China. On the inside the British continued to try and make an impression.

Roared on by the home crowd the Dutch held onto their lead to take eventual victory with Germany second, China third, Australia fourth and Britain in fifth. For this developing crew this was still a solid result at world cup level and something on which they can continue to build.

Next onto the Bosbaan regatta course for GB were Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter, who were silver medallists in Linz behind the Danish world champions on their debut as a combination at world cup level. Denmark set a world best time in the semi-final so the British duo knew it would be tough.

By halfway the Danes - who had gone out strongly right from the start - were more than three seconds ahead. At two-thirds the British had pulled them back by a second. By the finish line, though, the Danes had clear water in a repeat of the result from Linz with GB taking silver by holding off the fast-finishing Poles.

"We've moved on a lot in training", said Hunter afterwards. "Now we need to show that more in racing. The standard in this event is so high. We need to work even harder".

Despite winning gold in the lightweight men 's pairs Leander's Matt Beechey admitted that he and his partner, Danby Harte, had had a 'bad race'.

"We didn't put into place the things we did in training", he explained.

The third and final world cup is in Lucerne in mid-July before the world championships in August in Munich.

ENDS