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Lauren Rowles MBE wins first medal for Great Britain on second day of World Rowing Cup II

Paralympic champion Lauren Rowles MBE claimed the first medal of the competition for Great Britain, taking silver in the PR2 women’s single scull

Rowles, who won Paralympic gold in Rio with PR2 mixed double sculls partner Laurence Whiteley MBE, couldn’t improve on yesterday’s huge personal best of 09:34.73 in today’s headwind but chased the Netherlands’ Annika van der Meer right to the line.

Collecting her silver medal, Rowles said: “This regatta’s been awesome. I always love Poznan, it’s a great course and I love the atmosphere here.

“It’s unfortunate not to come away with the win today. I really did hope that I would but you’ve got to take lessons from your losses and that’s what I’m going to implement in training as we go towards World Championships.”

Great Britain will contest ten more A Finals tomorrow after a strong showing in today’s semifinals and repechages.

Reflecting on the day, 91��ɫ Director of Performance Brendan Purcell said: “This competition has been a real step up from Europeans with the addition of the rest of the world and has made the semi-finals very cut throat.

“All of our crews put their best effort in; some of them got on the right side of the qualification line and the rest of them now have the chance to make a statement in the B finals tomorrow and show what they can do.”

In her single scull semi-final, Vicky Thornley showed the huge strides she has made since the European Championships last month by qualifying for the A final in second place behind Canada’s Carling Zeeman.

Thornley, who made her return to international competition in Lucerne after missing most of the 2018 season due to overtraining, said: “That was a big race for me today. I went out and attacked it and didn’t let anyone get away from me. I’m really happy – that was a big race I needed to perform in and I felt like I did a good job.

“Now I’m excited to just go out there and see what I can do tomorrow in the A final.”

Tom Barras showed the efficiency of his technique by settling into a stroke rate of 31 in the final 500m of his single scull semi-final, finishing half a length behind Oliver Zeidler of Germany to progress through to the A final in second place.

Discussing the race afterwards, Barras said: “I wasn’t looking forward to racing in the headwind – I’d much rather the race be over quickly – but I thought I rowed pretty well. I wanted to get off to a good start for the first kilometre and see where I was and go from there. In the end it was nice and controlled, which is always a bonus in a world class field like that.”

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 finished second in the repechage, seeing them progress safely through to tomorrow’s final.

Reflecting on the race, Shorten said “We learned from our race yesterday and put it into practice today – there were good patches and bad patches and lots to learn and improve on for tomorrow. It’s a really exciting field so it’ll be great if we can get amongst the pack.”

In the men’s and women’s fours, both GBR1 boats qualified for their A finals while the GBR2 crews will contest tomorrow’s B finals.

The GBR1 women’s four of Sara Parfett, Caragh McMurtry, Beccy Girling and Emily Ford maintained third place from start to finish in their semi-final, pushing hard to take the third A final qualification spot. In the second semi-final, GBR2’s Sam Courty, Holly Hill, Polly Swann and Annie Withers finished fifth to progress through to tomorrow’s B final, while the men’s GBR2 crew of Will Satch, Tom Jeffrey, Alan Sinclair and Adam Neill also moved through to the B Final after finishing sixth.

Matt Rossiter, who with GBR 1 teammates Ollie Cook, Rory Gibbs and Sholto Carnegie qualified for the A Final of the men’s four in second place, said: “Overall that was a good row. We did some things better than yesterday and other things not as strong as yesterday.

“We committed to what we wanted to do and went hard out of the blocks. It’s all to play for now in the final for the medals tomorrow.”

In their semi-final, George Rossiter and his teammate in the pair Harry Glenister were locked in a three-way battle for third place with Belarus and Brazil. They gave it everything over the final 200m to beat the other crews to the line and take the third qualifying spot for tomorrow’s A final.

Reflecting, Glenister said: “I’m so happy – George did an amazing job with the rhythm today. At 250m to go we were in line with Belarus and Brazil and I was saying ‘come on George, let’s go, just ten more strokes’, then we went through the line and realised we had done it.”

GB’s PR1 men’s single scullers Ben Pritchard and Andy Houghton went head to head in their semi-final and qualified for tomorrow’s final in second and third place respectively behind Erik Horrie of Australia.

Speaking about the weather conditions in the race, Houghton said: “It was a tough race from the moment we went off the start line. There was a consistent headwind and waves catching the blades. I thought, ‘just settle in for the grind, it’s going to be a long race’. Now the gloves can come off tomorrow and we’ll see what happens.”

Despite dropping into fourth place at the 1,000m mark, GB’s men’s double of John Collins and Graeme Thomas showed their strength once more to move through the field and qualify for their A final in second place.

Jamie Copus and Sam Mottram were agonisingly close to qualifying for their A Final, finishing in fourth by just one-tenth of a second behind Emil Espensen and Alexander Modest of Denmark. The lightweight women’s doubles both finished fifth in their respective semi-finals. GBR1 boat of Imogen Grant and Ellie Piggott and Maddie Arlett and Emily Craig in GBR2 will line up once more against each other in tomorrow’s B Final.

Anastasia Posner and Oonagh Cousins finished third in the D Fnal for the women’s pair, while the double of Ruth Siddorn and Georgie Brayshaw finished fourth in the C Final. In their C final the GBR2 men’s pair of Morgan Bolding and James Johnston had an exciting battle with the second Canadian crew, finishing half a metre behind them in second place.

Results

Women’s pair (D Final)

1. Noemie Kober and Marie Le Nepvou (FRA) 07:48.16

2. Viktorija Senkute and Kamile Kralikaite (LTU) 07:51.28

3. Anastasia Posner and Oonagh Cousins (GBR) 07:51.76

Men’s pair (C Final)

1. David de Groot and Tim Schrijver (CAN 2) 06:55.33

2. Morgan Bolding and James Johnston (GBR) 06:55.62

3. Marc Leske and Anton Braun (GER 1) 07:02.41

Women’s double sculls (C Final)

1. Lenka Antosova and Kristyna Fleissnerova (CZE) 07:30.23

2. Milda Valciukaite and Ieva Adomaviciute (LTU) 07:31.28

3. Anne-Sophie Marzin and Elodie Ravera-Scaramozzino (ITA) 07:36.05

4. Ruth Siddorn and Georgie Brayshaw (GBR) 07:39.54

PR1 men’s single scull (Semi-final 1)

1. Erik Horrie (AUS) 10:53.18

2. Ben Pritchard (GBR) 11:07.68

3. Andy Houghton (GBR) 11:26.44

Men’s pair (Semi-final 2)

1. Joshua Booth and Alexander Hill (AUS) 06:48.41

2. Kai Langerfeld and Conlin McCabe (CAN 1) 06:49.99

3. Harry Glenister and George Rossiter (GBR) 06:51.19

Men’s double sculls (Semi-final 1)

1. Barnabe Delarze and Roman Roeoesli (SUI) 06:35.02

2. John Collins and Graeme Thomas (GBR) 06:35.77

3. Tim Ole Naske and Stephan Krueger (GER 1) 06:35.98

Women’s four (Semi-final 1)

1. Australia 06:54.54

2. USA 1 06:55.52

3. China 06:55.87

…

5. Great Britain 2 (Sam Courty, Holly Hill, Polly Swann and Annie Withers) 07:04.92

Women’s four (Semi-final 2)

1. Denmark 06:53.53

2. USA 2 06:55.78

3. Great Britain 1 (Emily Ford, Beccy Girling, Sara Parfett and Caragh McMurtry) 06:57.93

Men’s four (Semi-final 1)

1. Poland 06:18.65

2. Italy 06:20.05

3. South Africa 06:22.53

…

6. Great Britain 2 (Will Satch, Tom Jeffrey, Alan Sinclair and Adam Neill) 06:31.06

Men’s four (Semi-final 2)

1. Australia 06:16.77

2. Great Britain 1 (Ollie Cook, Matt Rossiter, Rory Gibbs and Sholto Carnegie) 06:19.39

3. USA 2 06:21.15

Women’s single scull (Semi-final 2)

1. Carling Zeeman (CAN) 08:08.51

2. Vicky Thornley (GBR) 08:11.38

3. Fie Udby Erichsen (DEN) 08:11.99

Men’s single scull (Semi-final 1)

1. Oliver Zeidler (GER) 07:26.03

2. Tom Barras (GBR) 07:28.11

3. Angel Fournier Rodriguez (CUB) 07:32.57

Lightweight women’s double sculls (Semi-final 1)

1. Zoe McBride and Jackie Kidde (NZL) 07:28.05

2. Wenyi Huang and Dandan Pang (CHN 1) 07:32.89

3. Valentina Rodini and Federica Cesarini (ITA) 07:33.64

…

5. Ellie Piggott and Imogen Grant (GBR 1) 07:39.54

Lightweight women’s double sculls (Semi-final 2)

1. Laura Tarantola and Claire Bove (FRA) 07:31.64

2. Anastasiia Ianina and Alena Furman (BLR) 07:34.47

3. Michelle Sechser and Christine Cavallo (USA) 07:35.79

…

5. Maddie Arlett and Emily Craig (GBR 2) 07:43.89

Lightweight men’s double sculls (Semi-final 2)

1. Jonathan Rommelmann and Jason Osbourne (GER) 06:49.11

2. Harrison Somerville and Matthew Dunham (NZL) 06:50.68

3. Emil Espensen and Alexander Modest (DEN) 06:51.53

4. Sam Mottram and Jamie Copus (GBR) 06:51.63

Women’s eight (Repechage)

1. New Zealand 06:39.00

2. Great Britain (Fiona Gammond, Zoe Lee, Jo Wratten, Hattie Taylor, Rowan McKellar, Rebecca Shorten, Karen Bennett, Holly Norton and cox Morgan Baynham-Williams) 06:40.63

3. Canada 06:41.94

PR2 women’s single scull (Final)

1. Annika van der Meer (NED) 10:28.74

2. Lauren Rowles (GBR) 10:33.77