Two head-turning eights
Both of the British men’s eights turned a few heads on Amsterdam’s Bosbaan lake in today’s world cup racing but for different reasons.
The "new" composite eight, sponsored jointly by Siemens and Camelot, stroked by Olympic champion Steve Williams and constructed from elements of Britain’s unbeaten world champion four and its world cup winning pair won their heat, despite their recent formation, to qualify directly into Sunday’s final.
Britain’s more-established eight fought tooth and nail to join them in the other heat but were denied by Poland in a photo-finish by less than a hundredth of a second and now race in tomorrow’s repechages.
Elsewhere Britain had four other heat winners – including the single scull as well as Matt Wells and Stephen Rowbotham, double scull gold medal winners in the first world cup, and the two men’s lightweight Olympic boats: the four and the double scull.
Six British boats are through to tomorrow’s semi-finals. Alan Campbell has a single scull quarter-final later today and nine boats still have second chances through today and tomorrow’s repechages.
The Camelot-backed women’s quadruple scull had a frustrating morning after their race was postponed on the start line because of an equipment failure for Germany. They will now race tomorrow alongside the lightweight men’s pair and the mixed adaptive four who have yet to race.
Britain won the last world cup in Linz, Austria, at the beginning of the month but the contest is already tougher here partly because of new nations entering the fray, like New Zealand, but equally because of some changes that GB has made to its men’s squad. "There is definitely a difference here", said GB Performance Director David Tanner. "We’ve done reasonably well here this morning but let’s see how we go from here".
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Race reports
HEATS
The two British open weight sculling boats that won medals in Linz three weeks ago led GB into the heats programme today and enjoyed two quick wins.
Alan Campbell made light work of his opening single scull heat. He already had a half-length lead by 100m and moved out to a length by 250m. Sweden vaguely and temporarily threatened at the half-way point but, as coach Bill Barry said it was "no sweat" for the man from Coleraine who has a quarter-final later today.
Matt Wells and Stephen Rowbotham have quietly established themselves, with help from coach Mark Earnshaw, as one of the best crews in the world in the men’s double scull. Today, the current world cup leaders, sat in the pack behind early leaders New Zealand for part of the race before emerging to win comfortably in 6:17.77 from Australia to go through to a semi-final tomorrow.
In the same heat the U23 duo of Bill Lucas and Charles Cousins, graduate of The ARA’s World Class Start programme, sponsored by Siemens, produced one of the best performances from the U23 squad here by taking fourth place.
Not to be outdone, Wells and Rowbotham’s lightweight counterparts Zac Purhcase and Mark Hunter were victors. They also sat behind New Zealand who led to the 1000m mark before stepping up the pace for 10 strokes to push past and take a lead which they never looked liked losing to the delight of their coach Darren Whiter.
The lightweight squad had a successful morning because the men’s four and the lightweight women’s double scull, both coached by Robin Williams qualified for the semi-finals.
For the men this meant a tussle with Poland before finally emerging to take the lead at 1250m and hold onto it. Helen Casey and Hester Goodsell, a new partnership this year, were fourth in the first quarter of their race but pulled back to second behind a fairly dominant Chinese crew who won comfortably. The rowing world is beginning to experience the kind of competitive strength in depth from China as that already well-known to Britain’s badminton and table tennis players over the past three decades.
There were two other qualifying performances this morning. The first came from Tom James, back in the squad after finishing exams at Cambridge, and Molesey’s Tom Solesbury. Drawn in the inside lane they battled into second place at 1500m and were strong enough to stay there as the race crossed the line and book a semi-final place. In another heat of the same event Kieran West and Jonno Devlin were fifth and now race the repechages
The British men’s quadruple scull will also feature on tomorrow’s semi-final programme. This mix of "experience and youth" were second in their heat behind Poland but ahead of hosts, Holland, and Belarus.
Britain’s world cup silver-medal winning women’s eight of three weeks ago knew the pace would pick up here. That didn’t stop them putting in a gutsy performance this morning to finish second by Holland, whom they hunted all the way down the course. With only one crew going through to Sunday’s final, the British combination, stroked by Louisa Reeve, now has a repechage tomorrow.
Natasha Howard and Alison Knowles, who reached the final in Linz on their debut as a pair were frustrated to miss out on qualifying today. Germany were the early leaders in their heat but the British took up pole position at the half-way mark. Both crews were then overhauled by Australia, the eventual winners, and Germany had more in reserve in the dying phase and took second. In the same race the U23 pairing of Olivia Whitlam and Heather Stanning were fifth.
In the men’s four event here, Britain has an U23 crew racing and they acquitted themselves well to finish fifth.
With thunder threatening and rain imminent, the men’s eights racing produced some storming finishes. Britain were bested in the final race in an almost inseparable photo-finish from Poland but took the verdict in the first of the two heats after coming back on the early leaders, China, who themselves were pipped at the line by Switzerland.
Andy Hodge, of the composite eight who were heat winners said: "You never know what the other crews are going to do. We knew that we had a good rhythm and primarily we enjoyed ourselves. Now there are things that we can improve on. I think we are capable of going faster".
Finally, Andrea Dennis was in contention in the early stages of her lightweight single scull heat in the day’s opening race but fell away later to face a repechage. Alasdair Leighton-Crawford was second in the equivalent men’s boat class and will also race a repechage.
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GB RESULTS – Day One
World Cup – Amsterdam (22-24 June)
HEATS
OPEN
WOMEN
Pair
Heat 3
1. Kim Crow/Sarah Cook (Australia) 7:18.48
2. Christina Gerking/Maren Derlien (Germany) 7:18.77
3. Alison Knowles/Natasha Howard (GREAT BRITAIN) 7:20.38
4. Gao Yanhua/Huang Meishuang (China 2) 7:28.32
5. Olivia Whitlam/Heather Stanning (GREAT BRITAIN 2) 7:34.38
6. Mu Suli/Yu Fei (China 4) 7:43.40
Eight
Heat 1
1. Netherlands 6:13.35
2. Baz Moffat/Carla Ashford/Georgina Menheneott/Jess Eddie
Beth Rodford/Natasha Page/Katie Greves/Louisa Reeve/
Caroline O’Connor (cox) (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:16.78
3. New Zealand 6:25.40
4. Belarus 6:30.41
MEN
Pair
Heat 1
1. Niksa & Sinisa Skelin (Croatia) 6:41.02
2. Tom Solesbury/Tom James (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:43.88
3. Anderson Nocetti/Allan Bitencourt (Brazil) 6:49.74
4. Oleskij Tarasenko/Andriy Pryveda (Ukraine) 6:50.91
5. Jason Heard/Fergus Pragnell (Australia) 6:57.32
6. Jakub Makovicka/Jan Schindler (Czech Republic) 7:13.06
Heat 3
1. Andreas Penkner/Jochen Urban (Germany) 6:35.87
2. Ramon di Clemente/Donovan Cech (South Africa) 6:36.73
3. Piotr Hojka/Jaroslaw Godek (Poland 2) 6:40.80
4. Olaf van Andel/Jozef Klaassen (Netherlands 2) 6:43.59
5. Jonno Devlin/Kieran West (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:50.57
6. Sumari Sumari/Iswandi Iswandi (Indonesia) 7:28.99
Four
Heat 2
1. Netherlands 6:00.72
2. Ireland 1 6:02.24
3. Poland 6:05.58
4. Denmark 6:13.02
5. Oliver Moore/Mohamed Sbihi/Cameron Nichol/Colin Scott
(GREAT BRITAIN) 6:15.03
6. Ireland 2 6:26.02
Eight
Heat 1
1. Alex Partridge/Colin Smith/James Orme/Marcus Bateman/
Peter Reed/Andy Hodge/Matt Langridge/Steve Williams/
Phelan Hill (cox) (GREAT BRITAIN 2) 5:32.43
2. Switzerland 5:34.67
3. China 5;35.88
4. Germany 5:39.09
5. Estonia 5:40.40
6. France 5:45.52
Heat 2
1. Poland 5:34.87
2. Tom Parker/Tom Stallard/Tom Lucy/Hugo Lee/Josh West/
Richard Egington/Robin Bourne-Taylor/Alastair Heathcote/
Acer Nethercott (cox) 5:34.88
3. Belarus 5:40.06
4. Australia 5:42.56
5. Netherlands 5:45.28
6. New Zealand 5:46.86
Single scull
Heat 6
1. Alan Campbell (GREAT BRITAIN) 7:03.61
2. Lassi Karonen (Sweden 1) 7:05.58
3. Kostiantyn Zaitsev (Ukraine) 7:15.44
4. Bart Poelvoorde (Belgium) 7:18.60
5. Oscar Vasquez Ochoa (Chile) 7:19.98
Double scull
Heat 1
1. Matthew Wells/Stephen Rowbotham (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:17.77
2. Scott Brennan/David Crawshay (Australia) 6:21.05
3. Joseph Sullivan/Nathan Cohen (New Zealand) 6:27.44
4. Bill Lucas/Charles Cousins (GREAT BRITAIN 2) 6:29.64
5. Oleg Lykov/Hennadiy Zakharchenko (Ukraine) 6:33.29
Quadruple scull
Heat 3
1. Poland 5:49.76
2. Simon Fieldhouse/Sam Townsend/Alex Gregory/Ian Lawson
(GREAT BRITAIN) 5:53.44
3. Netherlands 5:55.57
4. Belarus 6:04.84
LIGHTWEIGHT
WOMEN
Single scull
Heat 3
1. Maria Pertl (Denmark) 8:02.52
2. Orla Duddy (Ireland) 8:04.21
3. Coralie Ribeil (France 2) 8:10.13
4. Andrea Dennis (GREAT BRITAIN) 8:15.71
5. Kaarin Scanland Morales (Columbia) 8:40.40
Double scull
Heat 2
1. Chen Haixia/Yu Hua (China) 7:08.44
2. Helen Casey/Hester Goodsell (GREAT BRITAIN) 7:14.35
3. Weronika Deresz/Ilona Mokronowska (Poland 1) 7:21.77
4. Liu Jing/Fan Xuefei (China) 7:28.10
5. Femy Batuwael/Ratna Ratna (Indonesia) 8:00.15
MEN
Four
Heat 2
1. Richard Chambers/James Lindsay-Fynn/Paul Mattick
James Clarke (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:01.57
2. Poland 1 6:02.21
3. Netherlands 3 6:07.24
4. Czech Republic 6:19.15
5. Poland 2 6:21.04
Single scull
Heat 1
1. Jaap Schouten (Netherlands) 7:18.34
2. Alasdair Leighton-Crawford (GREAT BRITAIN) 7:23.33
3. Luis Ahrens Teixeira (Portugal) 7:27.22
4. Francois Libois (Belgium 1) 7:37.09
5. Ruthtanaphol Theppibal (Thailand 1) 7:39.07
6. Puyadanl Pantangthai (Thailand 2) 7:45.80
Double scull
Heat 2
1. Zac Purchase/Mark Hunter (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:28.06
2. Graham Oberlin-Brown/Peter Taylor (New Zealand) 6:31.82
3. Ondrej & Jan Vetesnik (Czech Republic) 6:34.27
4. Frederic Hanselmann/Stephan Steiner (Switzerland) 6:34.65
5. Ahmet Yumrukaya/Cem Yilmaz (Turkey) 6:37.16
6. Victor Aspillaga Alayza/Diego Mejia Petersen (Peru) 7:02.89
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GB CREWS FOR SECOND WORLD CUP OF 2007
(Amsterdam, June 22-24)
(NB – listed from bow to stroke with
athlete name followed by club, home town
and date of birth in brackets).
OPEN
WOMEN
Pair – two boats
Alison Knowles (Thames RC/Bournemouth/27.3.82)/
Natasha Howard (Tideway Scullers/West Runton/3.9.80)
Second boat – see U23 section below
Eight
Baz Moffat (Thames RC/Bradford/8.4.78)/Carla Ashford (Thames
RC/Northallerton/13.3.79)/Georgina Menheneott (Mortlake,
Anglian & Alpha RC/North Bradley, Wilts /18.12.78)/
Jess Eddie (Uni of London/Durham/7.10.84)/Beth Rodford (Thames
RC/Burton-on-Trent/ 28.12.82)/Natasha Page (Reading Uni/Hartpury/30.4.85)/Katie Greves (Uni of London/Oxford/2.9.82)/Louise Reeve (Leander/…./16.05.84)/Caroline O’Connor (Oxford Brookes/
Ealing/25.4.83)
Quadruple scull – three boats
Debbie Flood (Leander Club/Leeds/27.2.80)/Annie Vernon
(Thames RC/Wadebridge/1.9.82)/Fran Houghton
(Uni of London/Oxford/19.9.80)/Katherine Grainger
(St Andrew BC/Aberdeen/12.11.75)
Second boat – see LIGHTWEIGHT section below
Third boat – see U23 section below
MEN
Pair – two boats
Jonno Devlin (Oxford Brookes/Putney/17.3.76)/
Kieran West (CUBC/West Byfleet/18.9.77)
Tom Solesbury (Molesey BC/Petts Wood, Kent/23.9.80)
/Tom James (CUBC/Wrexham/11.3.84)
Four
See U23 section below
Eight – two boats
Tom Parker (OUBC/Winchester/24.10.82)/Tom Stallard
(Leander/Welwyn, Herts/11.9.78)/Tom Lucy (Oxford Brookes/
Monmouth/1.5.88)/Hugo Lee (Oxford Brookes/Jedburgh/5.3.84)/
Josh West (Leander/Santa Fe/25.3.77)/Richard Egington
(Leander/Knutsford/26.2.79)/Robin Bourne-Taylor (Army
RC/Oxford/22.7.81)/Alastair Heathcote (Army RC/London/18.08.77)/Acer Nethercott (OUBC/Harlow/28.11.77)
Alex Partridge (Leander Club/Alton, Hants/25.1.81)/
Colin Smith (Leander/Henley on Thames/3.9.83)/
James Orme (Leander Club/Colchester/1.4.84)/Marcus
Bateman (Leander Club/Torquay/16.9.82)/Peter Reed (Leander Club/Nailsworth, Glos/27.7.81)/Andy Hodge (Molesey BC/Hebden, N.Yorks/3.8.79)/Matt Langridge (Leander Club/Northwich/20.5.83)/Steve
Williams (Leander Club/Cheltenham/15.4.76)/Phelan Hill
(London RC) (Cox)
Single Scull
Alan Campbell (Tideway Scullers/Coleraine/9.5.83)
Double Scull – two boats
Matt Wells (Leander Club/Hexham, Northumberland/19.4.79)/
Stephen Rowbotham (Leander Club/Winscombe, Somerset/11.11.81)
Second boat – see U23 section below
Quadruple scull
Simon Fieldhouse (Molesey/Thames Ditton/4.9.76)/Sam Townsend
(Reading Uni/Reading/26.11.85)/Alex Gregory (Reading Uni/
Wormington/11.3.84)/Ian Lawson (Leander/Oltey, W.Yorks/4.3.77)
LIGHTWEIGHT
WOMEN
Single scull
Andrea Dennis (Wallingford RC/Oxford/03.01.82)
Double scull
Helen Casey (Wallingford RC/Oxford/6.2.74)/
Hester Goodsell (Rob Roy/Cambridge/27.6.84)
Quadruple scull – NB racing in the Open weight category
Laura Greenhalgh/Jane Hall (Leander/Caversham/
20.10.73), Mathilde Pauls (Imperial College BC/Berlin &
Putney/26.09.83)/ Sophie Hosking (Durham Uni/
Wimbledon/25.01.86)
MEN
Pair
Matt Beechey (Leander/Worcester/3.4.77)/Daniel
Harte (London/Edinburgh/12.12.75)
Four
Richard Chambers (Oxford Brookes/Coleraine/10.6.85)/
James Lindsay-Fynn (London/Trim/29.9.75)/Paul Mattick
(Wallingford/Oxford/25.4.78)/James Clarke (London RC/
London/13.12.84)
Single scull
Alasdair Leighton-Crawford (Tideway
Scullers/Richmond-upon-Thames/09.12.81)
Double scull
Mark Hunter (Leander Club/Romford, Essex/1.7.78)/
Zac Purchase (Marlow RC/Tewkesbury, Glos/2.5.86)
ADAPTIVE
Vicki Hansford )Guildford RC/Lewisham/31.10.79)
/Naomi Riches (Marlow RC/Harrow Weald/15.6.83)/
Alastair Mckean (Herne Bay ARC/Whitstable/14.4.79)/
Alan Crowther (Nottingham BC/Derby/29.7.65)/Tamsin Cottle
(cox)
UNDER-23 CREWS
OPEN
WOMEN
Pair
Olivia Whitlam (Agecroft/Warrington/19.9.85)/Heather
Stanning (Uni of Bath/Lossiemouth/26.1.85
Quadruple scull
Tina Stiller (Nottingham RC/Yarm, N.Yorks/23.6.87/Jacqui
Round (Nottingham RC/St Neots/1.7.87)/Lauren Fisher
(Reading Uni/Reading/17.2.86)/Franki Jus-Burke (Nottingham RC/
Nottingham/3.1.87)
MEN
Four
Oliver Moore (Imperial BC/Burford/3.1.87)/Mohamed Sbihi
(Molesey BC/Surbiton/27.3.88)/ Cameron Nichol (Uni of London/
Chiswick/22.12.85)/Colin Scott (CUBC/Cambridge/6.4.85)
Double scull
Bill Lucas (Reading Uni/Dartmouth/13.9.87)/Charles Cousins
(Rob Roy/Willingham, Cambs/13.12.88)
