Para crews and doubles feature for Great Britain on Day Two at the European Rowing Championships

The GB Para Rowing crews dominated the early morning racing on day two at the European Rowing Championships in Szeged, Hungary with both PR3 boats and the PR1 men’s single winning their races

There were continued learnings across the doubles crews with the Lightweight women’s doubles and Men’s doubles building on their races yesterday.

Benjamin Pritchard was commanding in the PR1 Men’s single sculls (PR1 M1x) repechage, his second race in consecutive days. “It was good. I went out there and tried something different from yesterday – it was a learning curve to see how we can build towards the final,” he said adding: “I’ve done a lot of work over the winter – probably my most consistent block of training in a season to date but a conversation I had at Caversham with Rich Chambers, the women’s coach, has stuck in my head… I said I felt good because I’d done so much training and I was in a good position, and he just dropped a little line ‘but you can bet your bottom dollar that the others have done the same’. That’s stuck with me – although we’ve had a good winter, we only get to see our competitors three times a year, so it’s going to be a good time to see what I can do against them and what they’ve done over the winter. I’m looking forward to the final.”

Settling into their new combination were Frankie Allen, Josh O’Brien, Giedre Rakauskaite, Ed Fuller and cox Erin Kennedy in the PR3 Mixed coxed four (PR3 Mix4+). They crossed the finish line almost sixteen seconds ahead of the French crew, maintaining their unbeaten run and setting the standard for the final on Sunday.

Making his international debut, Josh said “It’s pretty cool to get my first race and win under my belt. There was a bit of a headwind out there, we settled into a nice rhythm and rowed it well. It’s given us something to push off for Sunday – very exciting.” Frankie added: “Obviously it’s the first race of the Paralympic year and we’re in a new lineup as well, so it was nice to see how we compared to the rest of our opposition because they’ve all changed their boats as well. I think the race was a really solid one for us and I’m really looking forward to seeing what we can do on Sunday.”

Also recording a victory were Sam Murray and Annie Caddick in the PR3 Mixed double sculls (PR3 Mix 2x) preliminary race. They took the lead around the halfway point and finished strongly, over nine seconds ahead of the French in second. Sam said: “I’m feeling good – pretty confident in our performance and glad to have got the win.” Annie added: “We know we’ve been training well over the last few months, we were just excited to get out and show people all the hard work we’ve been doing and it’s paid off, so ready for the final!”

The new combination of Olivia Bates and Imogen Grant won the Lightweight women’s double sculls (LW2x) repechage and progress to the final. Imogen said: “That has doubled the number of races we’ve had together and I feel like we had twice the improvements too. It’s been so much fun to see how much we can learn from each race together.” Olivia added: “It’s good for us both to have a new challenge and something new to work on. I think it’ll push us on going into racing for the rest of the season as well as the rest of this weekend. I feel like I’m learning so much every race (having not raced in the double before) – hopefully I can bring that all together tomorrow.”

Seb Devereux and John Collins won their Men’s double sculls (M2x) repechage and progress to the semi-final tomorrow. John said “It was good and well executed. We had some things we wanted to work on from the heat yesterday and we went and did those. Obviously yesterday didn’t go our way, but looking at the times we knew we were in quite good standing across the field. We just want to go out and cement that and I think we did that today.”

It will be a B final for Becky Wilde and Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne after they finished the Women’s Double Sculls (W2x) repechage in fifth place. “It was a really good learning experience for our second race as a crew.” Becky explained, “Going forward, we know the areas we’ll need to improve. We’re in the mix, but were just on the wrong side of that result. We’ve learnt a lot in the couple of weeks that we’ve been together, this is Mathilda’s first race since she had a child and it’s my second race as a senior athlete so it’s just about learning.”

You can follow the European Rowing Championships across British Rowing social media channels and the World Rowing website. Racing will also be shown on BBC iPlayer and the BBC website.

Results from Day Two at European Rowing Championships:

Boat	Race	Time	Result and Progression
PR3 Mix4+ Frankie Allen (Oxford Brookes University BC) Joshua O’Brien (Molesey BC) Giedre Rakauskaite (Worcester RC) Ed Fuller (Reading University BC/ Nautilus RC) Erin Kennedy (cox) (Leander Club)	Preliminary race	07:15.94	→ Final
W2x Rebecca Wilde (Leander Club/ Bath University BC) Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne (Upper Thames RC)	Repechage	07:25.21	→ B Final
LW2x Olivia Bates (Nottinghamshire County RA) Imogen Grant (Cambridge University BC)	Repechage	07:20.87	→ Final
PR3 Mix2x Sam Murray (Molesey BC) Annie Caddick (Molesey BC)	Preliminary race	07:46.71	→ Final
M2x  John Collins (Leander Club) Seb Devereux (Leander Club)	Repechage	06:38.48	→ A/B Semi Final
PR1 M1x Benjamin Pritchard (City of Swansea RC)	Repechage	09:44.62	→ Final

Full results and crew lists