World Rowing Cup II Day Two: PR2 mixed double sculls and lightweight men’s pair claim GB’s first medals

Silver medals for Lauren Rowles and Laurence Whiteley as well as Joel Cassells and Sam Scrimgeour get GB off and running in Poznan

Great Britain secured two medals on the second day of racing at the World Rowing Cup II as both the Para PR2 mixed double sculls and lightweight men’s pair finished their regattas on the podium.

Paralympic champions Lauren Rowles and Laurence Whiteley were the first medallists of the day, winning silver in what was the British boat’s first race of the season.

And the lightweight men’s pair of Joel Cassells and Sam Scrimgeour followed suit with silver soon after, finishing half a length behind European champions Mark O’Donovan and Shane O’Driscoll of Ireland and adding to their bronze from Belgrade earlier in the season.

Tomorrow, eight British boats will compete in the Olympic class A finals, with the six who secured their places on day two joining the men’s four and quadruple sculls who qualified yesterday.

Vicky Thornley picked up where she left off in yesterday’s heats to win her semi-final and the 29-year-old will be looking to add to her World Cup I silver and European gold tomorrow.

The lightweight double sculls pairing of Katherine Copeland and Emily Craig, who have a European bronze to their name this season, edged out the German crew of Fini Sturm and Leonie Pless by two-hundredths of a second to win their repechage.

In the men’s single sculls, Tom Barras finished third in his semi-final to clinch a spot in the A final in what is the 23-year-old’s first season as a senior, while 19-year-old Josh Armstrong narrowly finished fourth in the second semi and will contest the B final.

Anastasia Chitty and Rebecca Girling’s fourth place in the women’s pair repechage was good enough to see them through to tomorrow’s A final, while both eights took to the water for the first time at the World Rowing Cup II in their respective test races.

The women’s boat finished only behind New Zealand with the men coming home behind Germany, Poland and Australia. Both British crews will row for the medals tomorrow.

Both the men’s and women’s double sculls and the second lightweight women’s double sculls will contest the B finals.

Elsewhere, World Class Start programme athlete Alice Baatz, in her first season in the sport, finished fourth in the women’s single sculls C final while Zak Lee-Green ended his regatta with a fourth place in the lightweight men’s single sculls B final.
 
Quotes

Laurence Whiteley said: “The podium is where we want to be and it’s good to do that in the first international race since the Paralympics. We didn’t have any aims or expectations coming to this regatta so be on the podium is great. We’ve certainly got a lot of work to do before the Worlds but now we know exactly what we have to do.”

Lauren Rowles said: “You take the conditions as they come in rowing, you’re racing in open water but it’s just lucky it was a tail wind out there rather than a head wind. It was a good solid performance today. It hasn’t been the easiest winter and we know we’ve got a long way to come but we also know how much potential there is in this boat.”

Joel Cassells said: “That was a good race for us and a definite step on from Račice. We know we’re now on the trajectory that we want to be on but we’re going to go home and step on things again. It was quite a strong wind out here but for two guys from Scotland and Northern Ireland this is actually quite a nice day. But we row the conditions and I think we made the most of it today.”

Sam Scrimgeour said: “The Worlds are the target for this year for us. This season has been a funny one for us but we’re heading in the right direction and the boats that were here were of good standard so it’s been a good weekend’s racing.”

Results

Women’s single sculls Final C
1. Lovisa Claesson (SWE) 7:40.81
2. Eeva Karppinen (FIN) 7:41.91
3. Lucie Zabova (CZE) 7:42.88
–
4. Alice Baatz (GBR) 7:50.56

Lightweight men’s single sculls semi-final (three progress to the A final)
1. Rajko Hrvat (SLO) 6:57.15
2. Lukas Babac (SVK) 6:58.81
3. Uncas Batista (BRA) 6:59.03
–
5. Zak Lee-Green (GBR) 7:11.45

Women’s pair repechage (four progress to the A final)
1. Sarah Hawe & Molly Goodman (AUS) 7:15.41
2. Jackie Gowler & Kristyn Goodger (NZL) 7:16.26
3. Melita Abraham & Antonia Abraham (CHI) 7:17.86
–
4. Anastasia Chitty & Rebecca Girling (GBR) 7:22.94

Women’s double sculls repechage (four progress to the A final)
1. Olympia Aldersey & Melanie Edmunds (AUS) 6:54.19
2. Daniela Schultza & Frieda Haemmerling (GER) 6:56.27
3. Thea Helseth & Marianne Madsen (NOR) 6:58.91
–
6. Georgia Francis & Emily Carmichael (GBR) 7:05.35

Men’s double sculls semi-final (three progress to the A final)
1. John Storey & Christopher Harris (NZL) 6:13.78
2. Rodrigo Murillo & Christian Rosso (ARG) 6:17.93
3. Dominik Czaja & Adam Wicenciak (POL) 6:20.86
–
5. Nick Middleton & Frazier Christie (GBR) 6:27.25

Women’s singles sculls semi-final (three progress to A final)
1. Vicky Thornley (GBR) 7:29.58
2. Annekatrin Thiele (GER) 7:33.43
3. Diana Dymchenko (UKR) 7:35.50

Men’s single sculls semi-final (three progress to A final)
Semi-final 1
1. Robert Manson (NZL) 6:46.35
2. Damir Martin (CRO) 6:50.37
3. Tom Barras (GBR) 6:53.37

Semi-final 2
1. Angel Fournier-Rodriguez (CUB) 6:50.03
2. Tim Naske (GER) 6:54.87
3. Nico Stahlberg (SUI) 6:57.00
–
4. Josh Armstrong (GBR) 6:59.72

Lightweight women’s double sculls repechage (four progress to A final)
1. Katherine Copeland & Emily Craig (GBR) 7:00.30
2. Fini Sturm & Leonie Pless (GER) 7:00.32
3. Cuiming Chen & Feihong Pan (CHN) 7:02.60
–
6. Eleanor Piggott & Gemmma Hall (GBR) 7:08.76

Men’s quadruple sculls repechage (two progress to A final)
1. Norway 5:44.46
2. Netherlands 5:45.76
3. New Zealand 5:47.02
–
5. Great Britain (Ed Fisher, Jamie Copus, Gavin Horsburgh & Sam Mottram) 5:53.77

Women’s eight test race
1. New Zealand 6:03.75
2. Great Britain (Annie Withers, Sara Parfett, Caragh McMurtry, Rebecca Chin, Josephine Wratten, Karen Bennett, Katherine Douglas & cox Matilda Horn) 6:06.72
3. USA 6:08:15

Men’s eight test race
1. Germany 5:29.97
2. Poland 5:31.28
3. Australia 5:32.11
–
4. Great Britain (Tom Jeffery, Tom Ford, Jacob Dawson, Adam McNeil, Cameron Buchan, Callum McBrierty, James Rudkin, Lance Tredell & cox Henry Fieldman) 5:32.84

Lightweight men’s single sculls B final
1. Matthew Dunham (NZL) 6:55.98
2. Lars Wichert (GER) 6:56.51
3. Jiri Simanek (CZE) 6:58.05
–
4. Zak Lee-Green (GBR) 7:04.95

PR2 mixed double sculls final
1. Annika van der Meer & Corne de Koning (NED) 8:06.21
2. Lauren Rowles & Laurence Whiteley (GBR) 8:20.85
3. Iaroslav Koiuda & Iryna Krychenko (UKR) 8:27.69

Lightweight men’s pair final
1. Mark O’Donovan & Shane O’Driscoll (IRE) 6:32.93
2. Joel Cassells & Sam Scrimgeour (GBR) 6:34.17
3. Xavier Vela Maggi & Willian Giaretton (BRA) 6:37.21