Both the women’s pair and men’s four lived up to their billing as gold-medal favourites by producing truly magnificent performances to dominate their respective finals and write their names into the history books.

Helen Glover and Heather Stanning, the outstanding women’s pair of the past five years, became the first-ever British women to successfully defend an Olympic title as they repeated their heroics from Eton Dorney.

Relative rookies back at London 2012, this time the weight of expectation was on their shoulders but they delivered in the style of great champions by leading their race from start to finish.

Glover said: “It’s really difficult to put this feeling into words. To defend your title is something very, very special. The first time we did it, it took a long time to realise we were Olympic champions and it was all new to us. This time round, we crossed the line and we were 2016 champions and we felt like that straight away.”

Stanning added: “It means so much more, we’ve put an awful lot of pressure on ourselves and I’ve been so emotional this week which isn’t me at all.”

Alex Gregory, Mohamed Sbihi, George Nash and Constantine Louloudis found themselves under pressure from Australia at the halfway point of the men’s four final but stuck to the gameplan laid down by coach Juergen Grobler to pull clear and surge to victory.

It was a fifth successive Olympic gold medal for the GB men’s four, breaking the previous record of successive victories in the event held jointly by Britain and East Germany.

Gregory, winning his second gold in the four, said: “The last boat I was in, in London, had some incredible positive parts but this is the most consistent performing boat I’ve ever been a part of.”

Nash added: “I’m really pleased, for these guys and for the whole project really. It’s a great crew to be part of.”

There was disappointment for Alan Campbell who had to settle for fourth place in his men’s single scull semi-final after a stunning finish from Belarussian Stanislau Shcharbachenia, which denied the Coleraine rower a shot at a second Olympic medal.

Will Fletcher and Richard Chambers finished their regatta on a positive note by winning the lightweight men’s double scull B final, while the lightweight women’s double of Charlotte Taylor and Kat Copeland were second in the C final.

Tomorrow GB’s two eights are in action and both are considered medal chances. The women go at 15.04 BST, followed by the men at 15.24 BST.

Click on the expander boxes below for full race reports, reaction and results.

For further information about this report please contact the GB Rowing Team press officer, Caroline Searle, via comms@gbrowingteam.org.uk OR the phone numbers in the contact box below.

The post Thirty minutes, two golds – historic day for GB in Rio appeared first on British Rowing.

Helen Glover and Heather Stanning were announced in the women’s pair in which they are the reigning Olympic, World and European Champions.

Glover said:  “It’s always fantastic to be selected to represent Great Britain, and never more so than in Olympic year. The European Championships are our first opportunity to test our early season speed against international competition.”

And one of the strongest open men’s sweep* rowing squads in the world has been deployed across the men’s eight and four, as well as a new-look men’s pair, for the event which takes place in Brandenburg, Germany from May 6-8.

Sir David Tanner, GB Rowing Team Performance Director, said: “We are clearly ambitious to do well in Rio and will race and then review the Europeans combinations announced today. We will also enter six crews for the Varese World Cup regatta in ten days’ time.”

Double Olympic men’s four champions Pete Reed and Andrew T Hodge have been selected into the men’s eight in a line-up which includes Scott Durant and 2012 men’s eight medallist Matt Langridge alongside multiple World Champions Paul Bennett, Matt Gotrel, Tom Ransley, stroke Will Satch and cox Phelan Hill. Ransley, Satch and Hill are also 2012 medallists.

Alex Gregory, 2012 gold medallist in the four, returns to that boat and races with his Trials winning partner, Mohamed Sbihi, plus George Nash and stroke Constantine Louloudis. The quartet are all reigning World Champions in the men’s eight.

Gregory said:  “Everything we do aims towards the Olympics and now finally we are starting to form the crews that will make up the Olympic team. With the European Championships as the first test, I can’t wait to get the 2016 racing season underway. It’s a privilege to race for our country and the feeling of pride and excitement never diminishes.”

Having laid down a strong marker with a top-four finish at the recent GB Trials, Alan Sinclair and Stewart Innes are named as the men’s pair.

It is the first major step conquered on the way to fulfilling my dream of competing in my fifth Olympic Games – Frances Houghton

Relative rookie Angus Groom has forced his way into the open men’s quadruple scull* in the absence of the injured Charles Cousins, to join 2013 and 2014 World medallists Sam Townsend, Graeme Thomas and Peter Lambert.

Lambert said:  “I am extremely happy with my selection for the Europeans. This regatta is an exciting start to our Olympic season. The men’s quad at the Europeans is an extremely high competition. Out of the eight crews that qualified last year for the Olympics, seven of them are European countries. We are looking forward to it.”

2012 bronze medallist Alan Campbell, whose Trials’ win showed that he is back on form, races the single scull and Jonny Walton and John Collins, contest the double scull – they qualified that boat for Rio at last year’s World Championships.

Four-times Olympic medallist Katherine Grainger is named in the open women’s double scull with Trials winner Vicky Thornley in a reprise of their 2015 partnership which finished its debut season with a place in the World final.

Like Grainger, Frances Houghton, will race a fifth Olympic Games if selected later this summer for Rio.  She has switched from sculling to sweep rowing and has won a seat in the women’s eight that came so close to winning a medal at last year’s World Championships.

Grainger said:  “The idea of ever competing at the Olympic Games was once just a dream and so it was incredible when I made the team in 2000. Now 16 years on and looking to my fifth Games I still have the same excitement I did back then, it’s the most amazing event to be part of and that doesn’t change whether it’s the first time or the fifth.”

Houghton said:  “I feel almost overwhelmed to be selected for the European Championships in the women’s eight. It is the first major step conquered on the way to fulfilling my dream of competing in my fifth Olympic Games.

“It has at times seemed like an insurmountable mountain to climb and now it is just sinking in that all the hard work and deep belief in the darkest of times of illness and injury has paid off.”

Olympians Jess Eddie, Katie Greves and Melanie Wilson as well as 2013 World pair champion Polly Swann, back after a year out with injury, will be joined in the line-up by Zoe Lee, Karen Bennett, Olivia Carnegie-Brown and cox Zoe de Toledo.

It’s a privilege to race for our country and the feeling of pride and excitement never diminishes – Alex Gregory

World silver medallists Kat Copeland and Charlotte Taylor will once more race the lightweight women’s double scull having taken the top two spots at the Trials from a strongly contested lightweight sculling group. Imogen Walsh, therefore, races the single in which she won World silver in 2015.

Richard Chambers is on his way back after a recent hand injury and will race the lightweight men’s double, if fully fit, with Will Fletcher. Just like Olympic Champion Copeland and Taylor, they won World silver last year in their debut season together.

Further post-Trials testing was needed to establish the crews for the lightweight men’s sweep boats.  2012 silver medallists Peter Chambers and Chris Bartley have made the cut and will be joined by Mark Aldred and Jono Clegg, both now experienced internationals.  Sam Scrimgeour and Joel Cassells are GB’s choice in the pair. They won World gold last year.

Jamie Kirkwood, a World finalist last year, takes up the GB slot in the lightweight men’s single once more.

British Rowing will also race six crews at the Varese World Cup from April 15-17, including the women’s quadruple scull, announced in the European squad today as Holly Nixon, Jess Leyden, Tina Stiller and Rosamund Bradbury as the campaign begins to qualify this boat for Rio.

Click the expander ‘Crew List’ box below to see the squad in full.

*Sweep = one rower, one oar / Scull = one rower, two sculls

RACING TIMETABLE – 2016 European Championships, Brandenburg, Germany

• Friday 6 May – all heats a.m.; some repechages p.m.
• Saturday 7 May – All further repechages and semi-finals.
• Sunday 8 May – All finals (09.33 – 13.33 UK Time).

GB ROWING TEAM MEDALISTS – 2015 European Championships, Poznan, Poland

Gold:

• Women’s pair – Helen Glover, Heather Stanning.
• Men’s pair – James Foad, Matt Langridge.
• Men’s four – Nathaniel Reilly-O’Donnell, Alan Sinclair, Tom Ransley, Scott Durant.
• Lightweight women’s single scull – Imogen Walsh.
• Lightweight women’s double scull – Charlotte Taylor, Kat Copeland.
• Lightweight men’s pair – Joel Cassells, Peter Chambers.

Silver:

• Men’s eight – Matt Gotrel, Stewart Innes, Pete Reed, Paul Bennett, Moe Sbihi, Alex Gregory, George Nash, Will Satch, Phelan Hill (cox).
• Lightweight men’s double scull – Richard Chambers, Will Fletcher.

Bronze:

• Women’s double scull – Vicky Thornley, Katherine Grainger.
• Men’s quadruple scull – Jack Beaumont, Sam Townsend, Graeme Thomas, Peter Lambert.

The post European selections point to aiming high at Rio Olympics appeared first on British Rowing.

With six months to go to the Rio Games, Great Britain remains ambitious to maintain its place as the leading rowing nation.

This week, members of the GB Rowing Team are facing a battery of challenges set by the coaches and performance staff as the process to select the Rio 2016 line-ups continues.

“We all want to be on that start line under the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio,” said Alex Gregory London 2012 Champion in the men’s four.

“It gets more and more intense and more and more exciting as it gets to six months out, then suddenly it’s three months, then one month and soon it’ll be just weeks and days we’re talking about,” said Katherine Grainger, four times an Olympic medallist including gold in London.

“Every day becomes a battle for those Olympic places and there are not enough to go round.”

“The Olympics, for a sport like rowing, is the absolute pinnacle.  Every athlete of any calibre wants to be there,” said Sir David Tanner, British Rowing’s Performance Director.  “We are ambitious as a team and everyone is working hard.”

Pete Reed, already a double Olympic Champion, has talked of the internal pressure but also the way that the team is bonding together.

“What I have been most pleased with so far this winter is that the team is just so close,” he said.

“We have bonded as a heavyweight men’s team, and actually as a whole team, like never before in my experience – and I’ve been through a lot of teams now.

“That makes a big difference. I think the success of previous years has got a lot to do with it. We’re doing well as a squad and that encourages us to push on and train hard.”

Richard Chambers, winner of lightweight men’s four silver in London said:  “The level of racing within the squad, because we are a successful nation, is immense.  It’s almost as tough as racing internationally”.

His 2015 lightweight men’s double scull partner Will Fletcher said: “This week’s testing is some of the toughest that any of the team will ever face.  It is brutal.”

For Alan Campbell, winner of 2012 single scull bronze and one of four rowers from the town of Coleraine, who are battling for Olympic seats, the Rio Games could also feel like a “home Games.”

“My wife’s father is a Carioca, having been raised on Ipanema in Rio,” Campbell explained.

“He is now living in England but my wife still has family in Brazil and it would be very special for me to compete there feeling like a second home Olympics.”

Campbell has rowed on the natural lake – located just minutes from Ipanema Beach and overlooked by the Christ the Redeemer statue – during his visits to Brazil.

“The Lagoa is a very special venue, probably the most iconic I have visited and had the pleasure to train on,” he added.

“Rio itself is probably my favourite city in the world after London and the Brazilians that I met were amazing and very kind to me.”

“I am confident the Rio Olympics will be a first-class experience, not just for the athletes but also supporters coming to be part of the 2016 Games. I can’t wait to get going.”

Rowers, through their team doctor and TeamGB guidance, are also keeping an eye on the Zika virus situation and have compassion for those affected.

Grainger recently told the BBC, who will broadcast the Games and the preceding rowing European Championships, and two world cups in Lucerne and Poznan:  “”I think it is important to keep informed but not to raise the fear factor,” she said.

Jürgen Gröbler, Chief Coach for Open Men, has also spoken about this being the most difficult time of the four year cycle.

“If I look at the medals and gold medals won by the open men’s squad in the last few years in the Olympic and non-Olympic events at World level, it is so difficult to separate the rowers.  There are always more people than seats and to look a medal-winning athlete in the eye and tell them that they haven’t made it is the hardest thing. It never gets easier.

Young people put their lives on hold especially in a sport like rowing where there are generally no riches to be won, it is all about the pride of being an Olympic medallist.”

Great Britain closed out the 2012 Olympic regatta with four golds, two silvers and three bronzes – a best ever.  Rowing is the nation’s most continuously successful Olympic sport with a gold at every Games since 1984.

In London, 28 rowers in nine boat classes won medals and all 47 rowers made the Olympic final in front of record crowds at Eton-Dorney.

After the 2012 success, the sport experienced a surge of interest and British Rowing is already planning for a similar post-Rio glow.

For those oar-inspired by events in Rio 2016 there’ll be an opportunity to try rowing at local clubs across the country during the Games. But if you want to give it a go before then this website has a dedicated ‘Go rowing’ area that provides newcomers, as well as those dusting off old kit, the information they need to get started – Go Rowing Section.

British Rowers will be getting help over the next six months to help make the boat go faster from Science in Sport, SAS Analytics and the Berkshire Independent Hospital alongside its major funder, the National Lottery.

For media enquiries about this article contact the GB Rowing Team press office via:  The GB Rowing Team Press Office

The post At six month marker, GB remains ambitious appeared first on British Rowing.