Gavin Horsburgh Archives - 91��ɫ

Olympic superstars to race at Senior Championships

91��ɫ — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 19:52:27 +0000

A host of reigning World Champions, at both senior and U23 level, will also be representing their clubs when the two-day competition is staged at the National Water Sports Centre, Holme Pierrepont.

“I love racing at the British Championships”, Scott Durant, Olympic champion

The last time Durant raced, he was part of the Team GB men’s eight that stormed to gold in memorable style on the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. Two months later, and at the end of a week when the Rio 2016 heroes were celebrated in Manchester and London, he will line up in an Oxford Brookes University eight looking to retain the British title they won last year.

“I’m looking forward to this weekend, I love racing at the British Championships and it should be good fun as always,” said Durant.

“It’s always good to get back into an Oxford Brookes boat and race with the students coming through. Brookes played such a huge part in my rowing development – I was there for six years between leaving school and joining the GB Rowing Team, and I owe so much of my rowing success to them.

“It should be a good competition. There are a lot of guys coming into the GB team who will be racing for the likes of Leander this weekend, so it will be tough but we are hoping to retain our title.”

Also representing Oxford Brookes are double Olympian Peter Chambers, twice World Champion Mat Tarrant, who was a men’s heavyweight spare in Rio, and Joel Cassells, a European Champion and World bronze-medallist in the lightweight men’s pair this year.

Sam Scrimgeour, Cassells’ partner in the boat for both of those races and the lightweight men’s spare at the Olympic Games, races for Imperial College BC this weekend.

The men's eight from the Rio 2016 Olympic Games

Bennett’s last competitive outing was with the GB women’s eight that won a historic silver medal in Rio. She returns to action as part of a strong Leander Club squad looking to once again secure the Victor Ludorum accolade for top performing club.

“I’m excited to kick-start the season at the British Championships,” said GB Rowing Team Start graduate Bennett, who will compete in a women’s eight field that has attracted an impressive 31 crew entries.

“It’s great to see so many women getting involved and racing. The eight is a very fast but fun boat because you can share all the moments with eight other people.

“It will be the first time I’ve raced since my Olympic final and the scenery will be a bit different but I’m really looking forward to it.

“It’s great to have the opportunity to represent my club. They’ve given me a lot of help over the years so when I was offered the chance to race for them this weekend I couldn’t turn it down.

“It will be tough after the post-Rio break I’ve had but I’m going to go out there and give it my best shot.”

Other rowers with senior GB experience include Becca Chin, Caragh McMurtry, Jamie Copus, Zak Lee-Green and Nick Middleton, who won both the double scull and quadruple scull titles at last year’s British Championships.

There will be plenty of potential Tokyo 2020 stars for rowing fans to look out for this weekend, including several who shone at this year’s combined Senior, U23 and Junior World Championships in Rotterdam.

“It’s fantastic to see such a strong and diverse line-up”, Jim Harlow, Regatta Chairman.

Ollie Cook (University of London BC) and Callum McBrierty (Leander), powered to gold alongside cox Henry Fieldman in the senior men’s coxed pair, while three of the women’s four that won in Rotterdam – Fiona Gammond, Holly Nixon and Holly Norton – will race in Leander colours this weekend.

Lightweight women’s quadruple scull World Champion Emily Craig will represent University of London BC, while Ellie Piggott and Brianna Stubbs – her team-mates in Rotterdam – will race for Wallingford RC.

All six of GB’s reigning U23 World Champions will be in action – Jess Leyden (Leander) and Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne (Reading RC) were emphatic winners of women’s double scull gold, while Hugo Coussens (Durham University BC), Ollie Varley (Newcastle University BC), Matthew Curtis and Gavin Horsburgh (both Edinburgh University BC) took the lightweight men’s quadruple scull title in fine style.

Eleven other U23 medallists and eight World Junior medallists will also take their place among the 1,004 rowers from 100 clubs – 19 of which are composites – who have signed up for this weekend’s championships.

Jim Harlow, Chairman of the Regatta added: “It’s fantastic to see such a strong and diverse line-up at this year’s Senior Championships. It is testament to the strength and depth of senior rowing across the UK. Rowing is one of those rare sports where club rowers have the chance to compete alongside GB rowers including returning Olympic champions. After so many inspiring performances on the Lagoa in Rio it is set to be a hotly contested championship.”

Races will take place in nine categories – men’s and women’s double sculls, men’s and women’s fours, men’s and women’s quadruple sculls, men’s and women’s eights, and mixed para-rowing.

Racing is scheduled to begin at 9am on both days and conclude around 4.30pm on Saturday and 4.10pm on Sunday. This year’s championships are the first-ever to include prizes for non-high performance programme clubs and universities.

For more information about the 91��ɫ Senior Championships, visit .

SCHEDULE FOR A FINALS (ALL SUBJECT TO CHANGE)

Saturday

15:30 – men’s double scull

15:48 – women’s double scull

16:06 – men’s four

16:24 – women’s four

Sunday

13:40 – para-rowing

15:06 – women’s eight

15:24 – men’s quadruple scull

15:42 – women’s quadruple scull

16:00 – men’s eight

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U23s challenged to show Tokyo 2020 potential at Worlds

91��ɫ — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:08:45 +0000

Sir David Tanner, 91��ɫ’s Performance Director and Overall Team Leader in Rotterdam, said “This is a key year for our Under 23s as we look towards the Tokyo Olympic cycle. Our rowers have the chance to impress at the Championships and stake a claim to a step on the Olympic ladder for 2020.”

Of the 57 rowers selected, 26 have competed at the championships in the past and can boast 13 medals between them.

A further 12 rowers have previously represented Great Britain at the World Junior Championships, including two history-making gold-medallists – Jess Leyden and Gavin Horsburgh – of whom Horsburgh will be making his U23 debut when the regatta takes place from August 21-28.

Leyden – who became the first Brit to win an international women’s single scull title at the 2013 World Juniors – was fourth in the single at the World U23 Championships in 2014 and has no shortage of experience having raced in the senior women’s quadruple scull during the past two seasons, the boat missing out on Olympic qualification by two places.

She will team up in the women’s double with Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne, who made an impressive senior debut in the single at this year’s European Championships and returns for a third successive World U23s.

Another rower with senior experience is Sam Mottram, who raced with the lightweight men’s quad at last year’s World Championships a month after winning silver in the same boat at the World U23s – one of six medals won by GB in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He will contest the lightweight single this time.

This year’s lightweight quad includes Horsburgh, part of the first-ever GB men’s quad to win a gold medal at a global championships during last year’s World Juniors in Rio. He is joined by newcomers Oliver Varley, Hugo Coussens and Matthew Curtis.

Jess Leyden

Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne

Sam Mottram

Ed Fisher, Benjamin Reeves, Alastair Douglass and Jonathan Jackson have been named in the lightweight men’s four for a second successive year and will be looking to get on the podium again and step up a notch having won bronze in 2015.

The open men’s four are no strangers to the World U23s either, having made nine previous appearances between them. Lewis McCue – going to a fourth successive championships – and James Johnston both won silver in the boat last year and are joined this time by Tom George and James Rudkin, who finished fourth in the men’s pair in Plovdiv.

The women’s four contains two medallists from 2015 in Rowan McKellar, who won silver in the pair, and Hattie Taylor, who won bronze in the eight. They are joined by two former World Juniors, Lauren Kedar and Saskia Budgett.

Georgia Francis, who won silver with the eight in 2014 and raced in the double last year, will make her latest U23 appearance in the women’s quad alongside Lucy Burgess, Ruth Siddorn and Kyra Edwards, a silver-medallist in the quad at last year’s World Junior Championships.

Susannah Duncan was a team-mate of Edwards in Rio, winning her second World Junior medal in the process. Both she and Mary Wilson will make their U23 debuts in the lightweight women’s quad, alongside Ellie Lewis – a bronze-medallist in the boat in 2013 – and Maddie Arlett.

In the women’s eight are Emily Ford and Holly Hill, who won bronze with the four last year, plus World Junior medallists Charlotte Hodgkins-Byrne – Mathilda’s younger sister – and Anna Thornton. Alice Bowyer, Chloe Brew, Madelaine Badcott and Heidi Long complete a crew coxed by Sasha Adwani.

The men’s eight also contains two World Junior medallists in Oliver Wynne-Griffith and Matthew Benstead, as well as Calum Irvine, Tim Livingstone, David Bewicke-Copley, Sholto Carnegie, Robert Hurn, Arthur Doyle and cox Ian Middleton.

Harry Leask and Andrew Joel continue in the men’s quad for a second successive year, joined this time by Harry Glenister and 2014 World Junior medallist Rowan Law.

Tom Barras, who has been part of the quad for the past couple of years, has been the top U23 sculler this season and goes in the men’s single.

Rory Gibbs and cox Harry Brightmore, who were in the eight in 2015, will contest the men’s coxed four alongside Christopher Heywood, Michael Glover and Michael Aldridge, while debutants Oliver Hines and Graham Ord form the men’s pair.

This year’s World U23s are taking place alongside both the Senior and Junior World Championships, with more than 100 GB rowers in total competing on the Willem-Alexander Baan rowing course during an action-packed week.

Click here to see the Senior squad and here to see the Junior team.

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