Watkins and Grainger back to winning ways for GB Rowing Team
World double scull champions Katherine Grainger, 35, and Anna Watkins were back in the business of international racing today for the first time since taking their title in New Zealand last Autumn.
The anglo-Scottish duo cruised to victory in today’s opening heats in a time of 6:55.86 to book a place in tomorrow afternoon’s semi-finals at the world cup in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Staffordshire’s Watkins, 28, was particularly pleased to be racing again after a lay-off for injury which saw her miss the world cup in Munich in May.
“It’s always a lot of fun to race. But we’ve had to work very hard in the past few weeks to make it feel like our boat again. Now it’s coming together and that feels very exciting”, said Watkins.
GB Rowing Team Performance Director professed himself “very pleased” with a GB performance in which the team also clocked up a further seven heat wins including the world silver medal men’s and women’s pairs, the men’s open and lightweight fours, the women’s quadruple scull and the lightweight women’s double scull. Matt Wells and Marcus Bateman also won despite being hit in the warm-up area causing damage to their boat which caused the race to be rescheduled.
Brothers Richard and Peter Chambers, from Coleraine, were racing together at world cup level for the first time today when younger brother Peter raced in the British world champion lightweight men’s four as a replacement for the injured Chris Bartley.
The only disappointment of the morning’s session came when the GB men’s eight, world silver medallists, were beaten in the closest race of the day by the Dutch by just a hundredth of a second. They will now race a repechage tomorrow as only one crew qualified for the final.
This afternoon there will be quarter-finals featuring three of Britain’s Beijing Olympic gold medallists.
Pete Reed and Andrew Triggs Hodge, as men’s pair world cup winners in Munich, would be expected to progress comfortably. Mark Hunter, world and Olympic champion in the lightweight men’s double scull may have a tougher task. He is racing here with Adam Freeman Pask because his more usual partner, Zac Purchase, is recovering from a post-viral episode. The GB duo looked a little un-practised together in qualifying in third place from their heat.
*SIEMENS is the high performance partner of the GB Rowing Team
(as such they sponsor all the Olympic and Paralympic Class
boats in the senior squad and add value to the GB Rowing
Teams’ Start and High Performance Programme in Clubs Schemes)
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RACE REPORTS
Helen Glover and Heather Stanning were the first British boat to book a semi-final spot in Lucerne from the morning’s heats. By the finish the British women’s pair were rowing well within their capacity. Earlier they took the lead by 500m and were four seconds ahead by halfway before winning in 7:16.98.
“We were pretty much ahead from the first stroke”, said Penzance’s Glover afterwards. ‘Our starts have been very consistent”.
Stanning, from Lossiemouth and an Army Officer, added: “We didn’t put together a full-on race today so we still have things we can work on for tomorrow’s semi-final”.
Their male counterparts Pete Reed, from Gloucestershire, and Yorkshire’s Andrew Triggs Hodge were similarly comfortable in their opening heat victory which was enough only to move them into a quarter-final such is the depth of men’s pair entry here.
Reed and Triggs Hodge led through all the timing points on Lucerne’s Rotsee in calm and unruffled conditions. Australia were their early challengers along with Serbia but the field was almost three seconds behind at half-way, allowing the Beijing Olympic men’s four gold medallists, the option to race in a controlled fashion and reserve energy for the afternoon session.
Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger were excited to be racing again together here after a back injury kept Watkins out of the season’s opening world cup. Today they led from the outset and put their name on the one semi-final qualifying slot with seeming ease. Ukraine were second and Romania third.
“It’s always fun to race”, said Watkins. “But we’ve had to work very hard in the past few weeks to make it feel like our boat again. But it’s coming together and that’s very exciting”.
Matt Wells and Marcus Bateman did not have such a smooth start to the regatta here. Their boat was hit in the warm-up zone, damaging the bow and causing the GB duo to request a delay to effect repairs. When they returned to the water over an hour later the “Red Express” of Bateman, from Devon, and Wells, from Northumberland, were tested by the Slovenian returning former Olympic-medal combination of Luka Spik and Iztok Cop who led the race at halfway before the British duo re-established themselves to win and take the semi-final qualifying slot in 6:22.15. Estonia were third.
Between the two GB open-weight double sculls’ races, Mark Hunter and Adam Freeman Pask took to the water together for the first time together in GB vests – the latter substituting for Zac Purchase who won Olympic gold with Hunter in Beijing.
At the mid-way point it was clear that they were likely to take one of the three quarter-final qualifying spots – which they duly did in third behind Italy and Hungary.
Hester Goodsell and Sophie Hosking were more comfortable in qualifying for tomorrow’s semi-final with a heat victory in 7:08.81. The Netherlands were second and France third.
Matt Langridge of the GB Rowing Team men’s four, said his crew were happy to win this morning’s heat after a busy week of racing at Henley Royal Regatta where they won the Stewards’ Challenge Cup.
“This morning’s race was all about just getting through to the next round. Now we’ve done that we can step on for the semi-finals”, he said.
GB took the win in 6:01.14 with the USA second and Spain third.
Chris Bartley, from Wales, is injured currently so the GB lightweight four is racing here with Peter Chambers in the two-seat behind his bow-man older brother Richard. The Coleraine siblings were successful in their first outing as the GB quartet also featuring Somerset’s Paul Mattick and Maidenhead’s Rob Williams were heat winners in 6:01.27 to book a place in tomorrow’s semi-finals.
The final trio of GB boats had mixed fortunes. Mel Wilson has joined the world champion women’s quadruple scull boat here in lieu of the injured Frances Houghton. Britain won their heat in 6:26.55 and will now race in Sunday’s final.
The men’s quadruple scull of Sam Townsend, Bill Lucas, Stephen Rowbotham and Tom Solesbury were second to Australia in their heat to qualify for tomorrow’s semi-final but the women’s eight, who were third, to the world champions from the USA and Romania will now race a repechage tomorrow afternoon as only one boat went into the final from that race.
The GB boat, stroked by Lindsey Maguire, was beaten by the USA at Henley last weekend but will have been disappointed not to have repeated its Munich win over the Romanians – albeit that the margin between the two crews at the finish today was slight.
By contrast, the GB men’s eight, are already world silver medallists and they also took silver at the opening world cup in Munich. As such they were expected to qualify for Sunday’s final by winning their heat.
As the crews approached the grandstands with 300m to go it looked as if everyone had read the script. The Dutch, though, turned on some blistering speed to take the verdict at the line in a photo-finish leaving the Dan Ritchie stroked combination to race a repechage tomorrow. Germany, the world champions, were similarly tested in the opposing heat but came through narrowly.
Tom Broadway is racing here as a spare for the men’s eight he was fourth in his single scull heat.
Britain’s U23 combination of Constantine Louloudis and George Nash, racing here to gain experienceat senior world cup level were third in their heat and now race this afternoon’s quarter-finals of the men’s pair.
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RESULTS
2011 SAMSUNG WORLD ROWING CUP
(results for events featuring British crews only. Full
results at www.worldrowing.com)
HEATS
OPEN
WOMEN
Pair
Heat 4
1. Helen Glover/Heather Stanning (GREAT BRITAIN) 7:12.14
2. Naydene Smith/Lee-Ann Persee (South Africa) 7:16.98
3. Marie Le Nepvou/Stephanie Dechand (France) 7:28.98
4. Pavlina Zizkova/Lenka Vrecnikova (Czech Republic) 7:37.59
5. Hanna Nakhayeva/Natallia Helakh (Belarus 1) 7:38.45
Eight
Heat 2
1. USA 6:05.43
2. Romania 6:08.02
3. Jo Cook/Alison Knowles/Jess Eddie/Vicky Thornley/Natasha
Page/Louisa Reeve/Katie Solesbury/Lindsey Maguire/
Caroline O’Conner (cox) 6:08.35
4. Poland 6:28.15
Double scull
Heat 1
1. Anna Watkins/Katherine Grainger 6:55.86
2. Anastasiia Kozhenkova/Yana Dementieva (Ukraine 1) 7:00.34
3. Mihaela Petrila/Ioana Craciun (Romania) 7:04.99
4. Emma Darling/Emily Cameron (Canada) 7:08.98
5. Mette Petersen/Anne Lay Bourn (Denmark 2) 7:10.28
6. Kristina Loefman/Tale Gjoertz (Norway) 7:27.65
Quadruple scull
Heat 1
1. Melanie Wilson/Beth Rodford/Annabel Vernon/Debbie Flood
(GREAT BRITAIN) 6:26.55
2. New Zealand 6:29.89
3. Poland 6:32.21
4. Ukraine 6:35.00
5. China 2 6:36.39
6. Italy 6:38.29
MEN
Pair
Heat 1
1. Andrew Triggs Hodge/Pete Reed (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:36.97
2. Goran Todorovic/Nikola Stojic (Serbia 1) 6:38.72
3. Thomas Larkins/Cameron McKenzie McHarg (Australia 1) 6:38.99
4. Aleksandr Filipovic/Jovan Popovic (Serbia 2) 6:40.23
5. Fergus Fauvel/Nicholas Pusinelli (New Zealand 2) 7:11.60
Heat 2
1. Lorenzo Carboncini/Niccolo Mornati (Italy) 6:37.30
2. Michael Molina/Benjamin Lang (France) 6:39.62
3. George Nash/Constantine Louloudis (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:40.80
4. Truls Albert/Hans-Gunnar Grepperud Eikeland (Norway) 6:44.36
5. Sinisa & Niksa Skelin (Croatia 2) 6:44.53
Four
Heat 1
1. Matt Langridge/Ric Egington/Tom James/Alex Gregory
(GREAT BRITAIN) 6:01.14
2. USA 6:05.65
3. Spain 6:07.31
4. Germany 6:08.63
5. Estonia 2 6:09.71
6. Canada 6:17.29
Eight
Heat 2
1. Netherlands 5:27.83
2. Alex Partridge/James Foad/Cameron Nichol/Nathaniel
Reilly O’Donnell/Mohamed Sbihi/Greg Searle/Tom Ransley/
Daniel Ritchie/Phelan Hill (cox) (GREAT BRITAIN) 5:27.84
3. Canada 5:33.39
4. Australia 5:36.06
5. Ukraine 5:40.17
Double scull
Heat 1
1. Matthew Wells/Marcus Bateman (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:22.15
2. Luka Spik/Iztok Cop (Slovenia) 6:29.07
3. Alla Raja (Estonia) 6:34.06
4. Michael Wilkinson/Fraser Berkhout (Canada) 6:35.51
5. Paolo Perino/Rossano Galtarossa (Italy 2) 6:40.50
6. Artem Morozov/Vitaliy Kryvenko (Ukraine) 6:22.15
Quadruple scull
Heat 3
1. Australia 5:49.83
2. Tom Solesbury/Stephen Rowbotham/Sam Townsend/Bill Lucas
(GREAT BRITAIN) 5:52.09
3. Switzerland 5:53.17
4. China 6:06.20
5. Denmark 6:23.76
LIGHTWEIGHT
WOMEN
Double scull
Heat 4
1. Hester Goodsell/Sophie Hosking (GREAT BRITAIN) 7:08.81
2. Rianne Sigmond/Maaike Head (Netherlands) 7:12.39
3. Coralie Simon/Elise Maurin (France) 7:17.50
4. Triantafyllia Kalampoka/Christina Giazitzidou (Greece) 7:20.18
5. Liv Kalstroem/Cecilia Lilja (Sweden) 7:22.60
MEN
Four
Heat 2
1. Richard Chambers/Peter Chambers/Paul Mattick/Rob Williams
(GREAT BRITAIN) 6:01.27
2. Germany 6:03.88
3. Czech Republic 6:06.03
4. France 6:06.60
5. Spain 6:14.54
6. Japan 6:22.53
Double scull
Heat 3
1. Lorenzo Bertini/Elia Luini (Italy) 6:28.24
2. Tamas Varga/Peter Galambos (Hungary) 6:29.70
3. Adam Freeman-Pask/Mark Hunter (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:32.00
4. Joschka Kellmeier/Florian Berg (Austria) 6:33.78
5. Matevz Malesic/Jure Cvet (Slovenia) 6:45.30
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GB ROWING TEAM CREW-LISTS
2011 World Cup Regatta, Lucerne
July 8-10, 2011
(listed bow to stroke plus cox)
OPEN
WOMEN
Pair
Helen Glover (Minerva Bath/Penzance/17.06.86)/
Heather Stanning (Army RC/Lossiemouth/26.01.85)
Coach: Robin Williams
Eight
Jo Cook (Leander Club/Sunbury-on-Thames/22.03.84)/
Alison Knowles (Thames RC/Bournemouth/27.03.82)/
Jessica Eddie (Univ of London BC/Durham/07.10.84)/
Victoria Thornley (Leander Club/Wrexham/30.11.87)/
Natasha Page (Gloucester RC/Hartpury/30.04.85)/
Louisa Reeve (Leander Club/London/16.05.84)/
Katie Solesbury (Leander Club/Oxford/02.09.82)/
Lindsey Maguire (Wallingford RC/Edinburgh/15.01.82)/
Caroline O’Connor (Oxford Brookes Univ BC/Ealing, London/25.04.83)
Coach: Nick Strange
Double scull
Anna Watkins (Leander Club/Leek, Staffs/13.02.83)/
Katherine Grainger (St. Andrew BC/Aberdeen/12.11.75)
Coach: Paul Thompson
Quadruple scull
Melanie Wilson (Imperial College BC/London/25.06.84)/
Beth Rodford (Gloucester RC/Gloucester/28.02.82)/
Annabel Vernon (Leander Club/Wadebridge/01.09.82)/
Debbie Flood (Leander Club/Guiseley/27.02.80)/
Coach: Ade Roberts
OPEN
MEN
Pair
Pete Reed (Leander Club/Nailsworth, Glos/27.07.81)/
Andrew Triggs Hodge (Molesey BC/Hebden, N. Yorks/03.03.79)
Coach: Jürgen Grobler
Constantine Louloudis (Isis BC/London/15.09.91)/
George Nash (Cambridge Uni BC/Guildford/02.10.89)
Four
Matthew Langridge (Leander Club /Northwich/20.05.83)/
Richard Egington (Leander Club/Knutsford/26.02.79)/
Tom James (Molesey BC/Wrexham/11.03.84)/
Alex Gregory (Leander Club /Wormington, Glos/11.03.84)
Coach: John West
Eight
Alex Partridge (Leander Club /Alton, Hants/25.01.81)/
James Foad (Molesey BC/Southampton/20.03.87)/
Cameron Nichol (Molesey BC/Glastonbury/26.06.87)/
Nathaniel Reilly O’Donnell (Univ of London BC/Durham/13.04.88)/
Mohamed Sbihi (Molesey BC/Surbiton/27.03.88)/
Greg Searle (Molesey BC/Marlow/20.03.72)/
Tom Ransley (York City RC/Cambridge/06.09.85)/
Daniel Ritchie (Leander Club/Herne Bay/06.01.87)/
Phelan Hill (Leander Club/Bedford/21.07.79)
Spare: Tom Broadway
Double scull
Matthew Wells (Leander Club/Hexham, Northumberland/19.04.79)/
Marcus Bateman (Leander Club/Torquay/16.09.82)
Coach: Mark Earnshaw
Quadruple scull
Tom Solesbury (Leander Club/Petts Wood, Kent/23.09.80)/
Stephen Rowbotham (Leander Club/Winscombe, Somerset/11.11.81)/
Bill Lucas (London RC/Kingswear/13.09.87)/
Sam Townsend (Reading Univ BC/Reading/26.11.85)
Coach: Mark Banks
LIGHTWEIGHT
WOMEN
Double scull
Hester Goodsell (Imperial College BC/London/27.06.84)/
Sophie Hosking (London RC/Wimbledon/25.01.86)
Coach: Paul Reedy
LIGHTWEIGHT
MEN
Four
Richard Chambers (Leander Club /Coleraine/10.06.85)/
Peter Chambers (Oxford Brookes Uni BC/Coleraine/14.3.90)/
Paul Mattick (Leander Club /Frome, Somerset/25.04.78)/
Rob Williams (London RC/Maidenhead/21.01.85)/
Coach: Rob Morgan
Double scull
Adam Freeman-Pask (Imperial College BC/Windsor/19.06.85)/
Mark Hunter (Leander Club /Romford, Essex/01.07.78)
Coach: Darren Whiter
SUPPORT STAFF
Performance:
Team Manager: David Tanner
Chief Coach Men: Jürgen Grobler
Chief Coach Women & Lightweights: Paul Thompson
Media/Admin/Logistics:
Assistant Team Manager (admin): Jo Bates
Sponsorship Liaison: Fran Bullock
Boatman: John Tetley
Press Officer: Caroline Searle
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WORLD CUP SCHEDULE
The final World Rowing Cup, sponsored by Samsung,
of the 2011 season takes place in Lucerne, Switzerland, from
8-10 July.
Currently the key stages are timed as follows but this may
be subject to change after the entry and draw are
completed and in the case of weather delays. Full schedule and
updates at www.worldrowing.com
Semi-finals (non-Olympic classes only)
08.30 – 9.15 Saturday 9 July
Repechages and semi-finals (Olympic classes)
13.30 – 16.00 Saturday 9 July
FINALS (non Olympic classes)
16.06 – 17.50 Saturday 9 July
B Finals (Olympic classes)
08.45 – 10.03 Sunday 10 July
FINALS (Olympic classes)
10.22 – 14.40 Sunday 10 July
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TV Coverage from Lucerne
BBC TV Sport of the World Rowing Cup will be:
World Cup 3, Lucerne, Switzerland
Sunday 10 July
09.45 – 11.15 Live on the Red Button/online
12.30 – 14.30 Red Button/Online
Monday 11 July
13.00 – 14.30 Highlights package on BBC2 and online
and afterwards on the i-player
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KEY DATES FOR 2011
This important season for the nation’s top rowers
culminates in the World Championships and
Olympic qualifying regatta:
BLED, SLOVENIA, FROM AUGUST 28 – SEPTEMBER 4, 2011
Britain will seek to qualify boats into as many Olympic
and Paralympic classes as possible here rather than
through the last-chance final qualifying regatta in Lucerne
from May 20-23, 2012.
Meanwhile, here are some additional dates of note for the
GB squad for the remainder of 2011:
KEY DATES FOR YOUR 2011 DIARY
JUNE
29- July 3
Henley Royal Regatta
JULY
8-10
Rowing World Cup III, Lucerne, Switzerland
19
Announcement of the GB World Championships Team
21-24
World Rowing U23 Championships, Amsterdam, Netherlands
29-31
Coupe de la Jeunesse, Linz, Austria
AUGUST
4-7
World Rowing Junior Championships, Dorney Lake, Eton
(this is also the Olympic test event)
28 – 4 September
WORLD ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS, Bled, Slovenia
SEPTEMBER
16-18
European Rowing Championships, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
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CONTACT DETAILS
For media enquiries about The GB Rowing Teams please contact:
Caroline Searle, Andy Sloan or Miranda Edwards on:
T: (01225) 443998
M: Caroline Searle (07831) 755351
M: Andy Sloan (07714) 168391
GB Rowing Team website www.gbrowingteam.org.uk – full biogs available
here.
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The GB Rowing Squad is supported by the National Lottery
