Morale High Despite Typhoon Delay
David Tanner, Manager of the British Rowing Team, insisted that "team morale is very high" despite the news announced by the world rowing federation (FISA) today that the start of the World Rowing Championships in Gifu, Japan, will be delayed by at least 48 hours.
Typhoon Mawar is expected to hit Japan late on Friday and early Saturday and previous heavy rain has already made the course unrowable for the next three days. The delay means that eight days’ racing will now need to be compressed into six.
The British team, like the other 800 rowers due to take part, will be forced onto ergometers to train for the next three days in the lead up to the sport’s only "major" this year. Ergometers are the rowing machines to be found in most high street gyms.
"It’s not all gloomy", said Tanner. "We have been able to train on the water, if not on the actual course, for the past few days. The rowers have also already been doing ergometer training and the Japanese organisers could not have been more helpful. They have made every possible effort to make us welcome here and help us both at the venue and in our team hotel".
"On the downside, of course, it’s not ideal to miss three days’ on-water training just before the biggest event of the year".
For GB Rowing the World Championships provide the biggest test since last year’s Olympic Games.
The spotlight so far has fallen on the men’s four, with Steve Williams, Olympic gold medallist in 2004, being joined by newcomers Andy Hodge, Peter Reed and Alex Partridge in a crew which is sponsored by Camelot and coached by Jurgen Grobler.
The quartet has won every world cup title so far this season but has not yet faced the Australians or Americans.
However, this could also be the event where the women’s squad hope to outperform their male counterparts for the first time.
Katherine Grainger, twice already an Olympic silver medallist, strokes a women’s quadruple scull, also sponsored by Camelot, which features three other Athens medallists – Sarah Winckless, Rebecca Romero and Fran Houghton.
Debbie Flood and Elise Laverick, medallists in Athens, have teamed up latterly to form a relatively untried women’s double scull. They were world cup bronze medallists in Lucerne last month and have the potential to do well in Gifu.
The men’s quadruple scull of Matt Langridge, Matt Wells, Alan Campbell and Stephen Rowbotham is considered an emerging crew with the talent to make the final and perhaps push for the first major GB medal in a senior men’s crew sculling boat since the Seventies.
Robin Williams has joined the coaching team led by Paul Thompson with responsibilities for the lightweight squad and there is a new buzz and feel about this section of GB Rowing this year.
James Lindsay-Fynn and Mark Hunter race in the Olympic lightweight men’s double with Helen Casey and Jennifer Goldsack in the parallel women’s line-up. Britain is also represented in the lightweight men’s four – an Olympic class by Mike Hennessy, Nick English, Simon Jones and Dave Currie.
Meanwhile, a recent change in the men’s open weight eight sees 2000 Olympic gold medallist Kieran West in the stroke seat. This eight is now a blend of experience and youth and has been put together with the future in mind.
Britain has sound medal chances in the two adaptive classes – designed for elite rowers with a disability.
In total Britain’s squad for Japan features 57 athletes in 18 boats with seven reserves. 25 of the athletes are women and 32 are men.
At the last equivalent World Championships – including all the Olympic boats and held in Milan in 2003 – Britain won six medals of which three were in the Olympic classes. Katherine Grainger and Cath Bishop, now retired, were gold medallists in the women’s pair.
Britain will host the next World Rowing Championships on the London 2012 Olympic course at Eton in August of next year.
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FULL GB CREW LIST WORLD CHAMPS
(Clubs/ home towns in brackets)
OPEN
WOMEN
Eight
Beth Rodford (Thames RC/Gloucester)/Natasha Page (Reading Uni/
Hartpury, Glos)/Anna Bebington (Rob Roy/Leeks, Staffs)/
Jessica Eddie (Uni of London/Durham)/Natasha Howard (Tideway
Scullers/West Runton, Norfolk)/Carla Ashford (Oxford Brookes/Masham, N.Yorks)/Katie Greves (Uni of London/Oxford)/Alison Knowles
(Thames RC/Bournemouth, Dorset)/Caroline O’Connor (cox)
(Oxford Brookes/Ealing, London)
Coaches: Gary Stubbs/Ron Needs
Women’s sweep reserves:
Florence Temple (Thames RC/Northampton)
Rachel Loveridge (Thames RC/Hayling Island, Hants)
Double scull
Elise Laverick (Thames RC/Poling, W.Sussex )/Debbie Flood
(Leander/Leeds)
Coach: Mark Banks
Quadruple scull
Rebecca Romero (Leander/Twickenham)/Sarah Winckless
(Walbrook/Hurley, Bucks)/Frances Houghton (Uni of London/
Oxford)/Katherine Grainger (St Andrew/Aberdeen)
Coach: Paul Thompson
Women’s Racing Reserve
Annie Vernon (Rob Roy/St Minver, Cornwall)
Coach: Nick Strange
MEN
Pair
Tom Broadway (Uni of London/Newport Pagnell, Bucks)/Phil
Simmons (Molesey/Thames Ditton, Surrey)
Coach: Mark Earnshaw
Four
Steve Williams (Leander/Cheltenham)/Peter Reed (Oxford Uni/
Nailsworth, Glos)/Alex Partridge(Leander/Alton, Hants)/Andy Hodge
(Oxford Uni/Hebden, Skipton, Yorks)
Coach: Jurgen Grobler
Eight
Simon Fieldhouse (Molesey/Molesey)/Tom Stallard (Leander/
Welwyn, Herts)/Jonno Devlin (Oxford Brookes/Oxford)/Richard
Egington (Leander/Knutsford, Cheshire)/Josh West (Cambridge Uni/
Santa Fe, USA)/Henry Bailhache-Webb (Oxford Brookes/Bath)/
Tom Parker (Oxford Brookes/Aylesford, Hants)/Kieran West (Uni
of London/West Byfleet, Surrey)/Acer Nethercott (cox) (Oxford Uni/
Harlow, Essex)
Coach: Steve Gunn
Men’s sweep reserves
James Orme (Cambridge Uni/Colchester)
Hugo Lee (Oxford Brookes/Ancrum, Jedburgh)
Single Scull
Colin Smith (Oxford University/Henley)
Coach: Mark Earnshaw
Quadruple scull
Matt Wells (Uni of London/Hexham, Northumberland)/Steven
Rowbotham (Molesey/Winscombe, Somerset)/Alan Campbell (Tideway Scullers/Coleraine)/Matt Langridge (Leander/Northwich, Cheshire)
Coaches: Tim Foster/Jurgen Grobler
LIGHTWEIGHTS
WOMEN
Single scull
Jo Hammond (Kingston/Leamington Spa)
Coach: Nick Strange
Double scull
Helen Casey (Wallingford/Oxford)/Jennifer Goldsack (Wallingford/
Oxford)
Coach: Miles Forbes Thomas
Quadruple scull:
Tanya Brady (Wallingford/Camberley, Surrey)/Lorna Norris (Mortlake/
Mortlake, London)/Hester Goodsell (York Uni/London)/Naomi
Hoogesteger (Durham Uni/Wells, Somerset)/
Coach: John Keogh
Lightweight women reserve
Antonia van Deventer (Rob Roy/London)
MEN
Pair
Paul Mattick (Wallingford/Frome, Somerset)/Daniel Harte (London
RC/Edinburgh)
Coach: Rob Dauncey
Four
Nick English (Notts & Union/Whitley Bay, Newcastle)/
David Currie (Leander/Henley)/Mike Hennessy (Tideway Scullers/Deptford, London)/Simon Jones (Notts & Union/Nottingham)
Coach: Robin Williams
Single scull
Zac Purchase (Marlow RC/Tewkesbury, Glos)
Coach: Darren Whiter
Double scull
Mark Hunter (Leander/Romford, Essex)/James Lindsay-Fynn
(London RC/Trim, Co.Meath, Ireland)
Coach: Rob Morgan/Robin Williams
Lightweight men reserve
Matt Beechey (Leander/Worcester)
ADAPTIVE
Single scull
Rob Holliday (Royal Docks/Horley, Surrey)
Coach: Simon Goodey
Adaptive coxed four
Katie-George Dunlevy (Southampton Institute/Crawley, W.Sussex)/
Naomi Riches (Royal Docks/Harrow Weald, Mx)/Alastair Mckean
(Herne Bay/Whitstable, Kent)/Alan Crowther (DerbyRC/Derby)/
Loretta Williams (York City) (cox).
Coach: Simon Goodey
Team Manager: David Tanner
Assistant Team Manager: Drew Robertson
Team Doctor: Ali Sanders
Lead Physiotherapist: Mark Edgar
Resources Manager: Maurice Hayes
Sports Psychologist: Chris Shambrook
Physiologist: Al Smith
Nutritionist: Wendy Martinson
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FORTHCOMING DATES
August
28 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, Japan (to September 4)
(NB: now to start on 30th – subject to weather conditions)
October
22 1st Assessment Trials, Boston, Lincs
December
17 2nd Assessment Trials, Boston, Lincs
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CONTACT DETAILS
For media enquiries about GB Rowing please contact:
During World Championships in Japan from 28 August-
5 September. Japan is EIGHT HOURS AHEAD of the UK:
Caroline Searle: (00) 81 (0) 8010 322601
For enquiries at all other times:
Caroline Searle
t (01225) 383518
m (07831) 755351
British Rowing website www.biro.org.uk – full biogs available
here.
International Rowing returns to GB for the 2006 World
Rowing Championships at Eton. You’ll be kept up to date
by GB Rowing News. Official website www.wrc2006.com
Dorney Lake at Eton is also the venue for the
2012 Olympic rowing regatta.
Accreditation and results details for major
international events can be found at:
www.worldrowing.com
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The GB Rowing Squad is supported by the National Lottery
Sports Fund as part of UK Sport’s World Class Performance
Programme.
Britain’s lead senior women’s crew and lead men’s sweep
boat are both sponsored by Camelot.
GB Rowing News Bulletins are issued by British
International Rowing.
