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Great Britain claim four medals on final day of World Cup II

The GB Rowing Team claimed a fantastic four medals on the final day of World Rowing Cup II in Poznan, Poland, bringing their weekend total to five

After narrowly missing out on a podium spot at the European Championships in Lucerne earlier this month, some sensational racing from Graeme Thomas and John Collins saw them move from fifth place just before the 1,000m mark to take the lead in the final 500m.  They were narrowly beaten to the line by less than two tenths of a second by Barnabe Delarze and Roman Roeoesli of Switzerland, finishing with the silver medal.

Following the victory, Thomas said: “We’re really pleased with that race – progress is always a good thing.  Getting on the podium today gives us renewed confidence that the things we’re doing in training really are working and we are stepping forwards.”

World Cup debutant in the GB Para-rowing Team, Ben Pritchard put in a fantastic performance in the PR1 men’s single scull, coming away with the bronze medal over fellow GB rower Andy Houghton who just missed out on a podium spot.

Pritchard, who only made his debut for Great Britain at the Gavirate International Regatta in May, paid tribute to his teammate Houghton: “Andy’s a great athlete and role model so I have to thank him for my performance today.  Without him being such a supportive person to train alongside I definitely couldn’t be achieving these times.”

Both men’s and women’s eights enjoyed their second podium finish of the season, taking silver and bronze respectively.  The men’s eight of Tom Ford, James Rudkin, Tom George, Mohamed Sbihi, Jacob Dawson, Ollie Wynne-Griffith, Mat Tarrant, Josh Bugajski and cox

Henry Fieldman made their move at the 1,000m mark to push past Canada and take their second silver of the season.

“That was a good race,” George said.  “There were challenging conditions with a tough headwind in the first half of the race where the course is quite open but it got much better in the second 1,000m when it flattened out and we clicked into our rhythm. There’s definitely work to do back in training but we’re all pretty pleased with how it went today.”

The women’s eight of Fiona Gammond, Zoe Lee, Jo Wratten, Hattie Taylor, Rowan McKellar, Rebecca Shorten, Karen Bennett, Holly Norton and cox Morgan Baynham-Williams fought all the way to the line to take bronze over the New Zealand crew.

Wratten said: “I think we’ve got an amazing thing going on in this crew.  Our ultimate goal this season is to qualify the women’s eight boat for the Olympics at World Championships and we’ve all really bought into that with our coach. It feels like we’ve building momentum which is very exciting and means we can deliver our best performance at the World Champs.”

British Rowing Director of Performance Brendan Purcell said: “This has been a strong weekend in that we now have much more information about where we are in comparison to the rest of the world.

“We went into the weekend aiming for 11 boats to reach the position needed to qualify for the Olympics at this year’s World Championships and we had nine boats in that position.  Some of our medal-winning boats from the European Championships stepped up and delivered more strong performances, others didn’t get the performances they would have liked but we can now go back to training and use what we’ve learned in the lead up to World Cup III in Rotterdam.”

The GBR2 women’s four of Polly Swann, Holly Hill, Sam Courty and Annie Withers were locked in an exhilarating three-way battle for the top spot in their B Final, taking the win over Germany in a photo finish to finish seventh overall.

Swann, who returned to international competition this weekend for the first time since 2016, said: “This whole weekend has been up and down.  We scraped our way into the B Final but this has ended on a massive high. The girls delivered such a good race, really in control, really confident and that’s what we were missing for the first few rounds. I’m really happy and can’t wait to see what we can do over the next few weeks.”

After a fantastic semi-final yesterday, the GBR1 women’s four of Sara Parfett, Caragh McMurtry, Rebecca Girling and Emily Ford couldn’t break through into the podium spots in today’s A Final, finishing the weekend in sixth position.

Single sculler Tom Barras came agonisingly close to a spot on the podium in his final, finishing in fourth just behind Angel Fournier Rodriguez of Cuba, while Vicky Thornley finished fifth in the final for the women’s single scull.

Thornley, who contested the B Final at the European Championships, said: “This weekend has definitely been a step in the right direction after the Europeans.  My coach and I had a clear plan of what we wanted to do and this shows I’ve definitely moved on.

“The margin today was a bit tough to take but finishing fifth after not even making the final in the Europeans means I’m definitely going in the right direction.”

There was disappointment for the GBR1 men’s four of Ollie Cook, Matt Rossiter, Rory Gibbs and Sholto Carnegie, who were crowned European champions earlier this month but missed out on a podium spot today, finishing in fourth place.

Reflecting on the race afterwards, Carnegie said: “You have to learn from your wins and your losses, it’s all part of elite sport.  This is a good crew and we’re excited to keep moving forward and keep on racing.”

The GBR2 men’s four of Will Satch, Tom Jeffrey, Alan Sinclair and Adam Neill had a tough race, finishing sixth in their B Final.  A disappointed Satch said: “It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster over the weekend – the repechage yesterday was a bit better, we had a paddle yesterday and it felt quite good, we’ve been training back home and there’s times when we’re beating the other four, so today’s result is very frustrating. It’s now the classic thing of trying to pick yourself up from this and get back up again”.

The European bronze medal-winning men’s quad of Pete Lambert, Jack Beaumont, Jonny Walton and Angus Groom couldn’t make it on to the podium today after finishing fifth in a tightly contested final, as did GBR1’s Harry Glenister and George Rossiter competing in their first A final for the men’s pair.

The B Finals for the men’s and women’s lightweight double sculls were as heated as ever.  In the women’s race, the GBR1 crew of Ellie Piggott and Imogen Grant took second place less than a second ahead of GBR2’s Maddie Arlett and Emily Craig in third, while in the men’s race Sam Mottram and Jamie Copus finished fourth in a B Final which saw only three seconds separate the top four crews.

The third and final World Rowing Cup will take place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands from 12-14 July.

Results

Women’s four (B final)

1. Great Britain 2 (Polly Swann, Holly Hill, Sam Courty and Annie Withers) 07:10.74

2. Germany 07:10.79

3. New Zealand 07:11.06

Men’s four (B final)

1. Germany 1 06:24.03

2. Belarus 06:25.87

3. Switzerland 06:25.90

…

6. Great Britain 2 06:31.06

Lightweight men’s double sculls (B final)

1. Marek Reznak and Peter Zelinka (SVK) 06:53.92

2. Matthias Fernandez and Jan Schaeuble (SUI 2) 06:54.02

3. Julian Mueller and Fiorin Rueedi (SUI 1) 06:54.75

4. Sam Mottram and Jamie Copus (GBR 2) 06:56.93

Lightweight women’s double sculls (B final)

1. Patricia Merz and Frederique Rol (SUI 1) 07:39.14

2. Ellie Piggott and Imogen Grant (GBR 1) 07:40.87

3. Maddie Arlett and Emily Craig (GBR 2) 07:41.28

PR1 men’s single sculls (A final)

1. Roman Polianskyi (UKR) 10:28.05

2. Erik Horrie (AUS) 10:39.07

3. Ben Pritchard (GBR 2) 10:56.78

4. Andy Houghton (GBR 1) 11:25.12

Men’s pair (A final)

1. Joshua Booth and Alexander Hill (AUS) 06:38.23

2. Thomas Murray and Michael Brake (NZL 1) 06:39.49

3. Kai Langerfeld and Conlin McCabe (CAN 1) 06:43.34

…

5. Harry Glenister and George Rossiter (GBR 1) 06:52.57

Men’s double sculls (A final)

1. Barnabe Delarze and Roman Roeoesli (SUI) 06:32.84

2. John Collins and Graeme Thomas (GBR) 06:33.05

3. Tim Ole Naske and Stephan Krueger (GER) 06:34.43

Women’s four (A final)

1. Denmark 06:52.88

2. China 06:53.96

3. Australia 06:55.47

…

6. Great Britain 1 (Sara Parfett, Caragh McMurtry, Rebecca Girling and Emily Ford) 07:06.72

Men’s four (A final)

1. Australia 06:16.46

2. Italy 06:18.59

3. Poland 06:19.60

4. Great Britain 1 (Ollie Cook, Matt Rossiter, Rory Gibbs and Sholto Carnegie) 06:21.53

Men’s quadruple sculls (A final)

1. Poland 06:01.01

2. Australia 06:03.21

3. New Zealand 06:03.48

…

5. Great Britain (Jack Beaumont, Jonny Walton, Angus Groom and Pete Lambert) 06:07.67

Men’s eight (A final)

1. Germany 05:45.83

2. Great Britain (Tom Ford, James Rudkin, Tom George, Mohamed Sbihi, Jacob Dawson, Ollie Wynne-Griffith, Mat Tarrant, Josh Bugajski and cox Henry Fieldman) 05:47.74

3. Canada 05:48.44

Women’s single scull (A final)

1. Emma Twigg (NZL 1) 08:04.45

2. Magdalena Lobnig (AUT) 08:04.57

3. Carling Zeeman (CAN) 08:05.11

…

5. Vicky Thornley (GBR) 08:13.99

Men’s single scull (A final)

1. Sverri Nielsen (DEN) 07:21.96

2. Pilip Pavukou (BLR) 07:24.10

3. Angel Fournier Rodriguez (CUB) 07:24.79

4. Tom Barras (GBR 1) 07:26.09

Women’s eight (A final)

1. Australia 06:26.29

2. USA 06:27.74

3. Great Britain (Fiona Gammond, Zoe Lee, Jo Wratten, Hattie Taylor, Rowan McKellar, Rebecca Shorten, Karen Bennett, Holly Norton and cox Morgan Baynham-Williams) 06:32.04