It was an impressive first international gold medal for Benjamin Pritchard in the PR1 Men’s single sculls (PR1 M1x). He got out to a flying start and held the lead throughout to take the win more than six seconds ahead of Italy and Australia. “I’m elated! It hasn’t sunk in yet but it feels very special
  and on Father’s Day too! There’s a bit of extra motivation with my wife and daughter at home, so this feels very cool.” Benjamin said, speaking after the race, “I was trying to stick to my race plan and not get too distracted about those around me. Compared to the preliminary race, where I got sucked into who I was racing, today was so much better. This race has given me some learnings that hopefully I can work on before the Paralympic Games.”

World and two-time European champions Gregg Stevenson and Lauren Rowles maintained their unbeaten run in the PR2 Mixed double sculls (PR2 Mix 2x), crossing the finish line over six seconds ahead of Germany. “We always go out to win,” Lauren said, “we won’t settle for anything less at this stage of our careers and after the winning streak that we’re having. Today we wanted to go out, work as hard as we could, get that marker down before Paris and see what work we have left to do. It’s nice to be out here as I’ve never won in Poland before, so I had some wrongs to put right! Today I wanted to go out there and leave Poznan with a gold medal.” Gregg added: “We’re expected to win now so there has been different pressure for me this season, but I enjoy that pressure. We’ve been on an intensive training block where we’ve worked really hard. When Lauren is the boss you’ve got to work hard! We enjoy racing with and for each other so it’s a really good combination.”

Frankie Allen, Giedre Rakauskaite, Morgan Fice-Noyes, Ed Fuller and cox Erin Kennedy also continued their unbeaten run in the PR3 Mixed coxed four (PR3 Mix4+). Erin said: “We’re trying stuff out at this competition, it was a real opportunity to learn. This is the last exposure to multi-lane racing before every crew goes behind closed doors and tries to find more speed before the summer, so this was the last chance to test things out and it was really fun.”

Ed added: “There were a lot of unknowns coming into this race. There were a lot of racing crews that we haven’t faced this year, so it was nice to know where we stand. Now everyone’s going to go away for a few months before the big one in September.”

It was silver for European Champions Sam Murray and Annie Caddick in the PR3 Mixed double sculls (PR3 Mix 2x). Finishing just over a length back from the Australian World champions, Annie said: “There’s quite a lot of emotions, so we’ll see when they sink in! I’m happy we’re in the mix. We’re two months out from the Games so I think we’re in a strong position. We worked well as a team today, our communication was good. We knew the field was going to go out hard so as long as we stuck with them we would have a chance.

Sam agreed, “We know how much we’ve moved on and the progress we’ve made throughout the winter, but you never know how much other people have moved on. We were really keen to come here and see where we are in the mix. We were alongside the Australians for a large portion of the race which we weren’t last season, so I’m pleased with that, and this result is really motivating as we come into the final months before the Games.”

The Men’s four (M4-) GBR1 crew confidently kept up with the pack to take home an outstanding senior medal that sealed the World Rowing Cup for this boat class. Dan Graham, Douwe de Graaf, Sam Bannister and Matt Rowe won bronze and collected the overall World Rowing Cup trophy for the event. Sam said: “To perform out here next to crews who are going to the Olympics when we’re the development crew for our nation is amazing.” Matt added: “We learnt a lot about international racing today. We like to think that we’re up and coming and we hope this won’t be the last time that we’re somewhere like this!”. Dan said: “We were level with the Swiss in the last 500m, but we were able to out-sprint them at the end and push up on the Australian Olympic champions which was really cool, it was epic.”

Tom Dyson, Team Leader for Great Britain at the World Rowing Cup had earlier collected the World Rowing Cup trophies for the Lightweight women’s double sculls (LW2x) and Men’s eight (M8+). Commenting on the team performance, he said: “We had some superb results from our Paralympic squad, a highlight of which was seeing Benjamin Pritchard win his first ever gold medal. They will soon be heading to camp to focus on their final preparations for Paris.

“In addition, it’s so encouraging to see this strong group of development athletes come out here and attack their opportunity to race at this World Cup, supported by a top quality team of coaching & support staff. With the men’s four making the podium and so many of them reaching the final, the pathway for the LA Games is looking promising.”

The Men’s double sculls (M2x) was a tight race with the GBR1 crew of Stephen Hughes and Cedol Dafydd missing the podium by less than a second to finish in fourth place ahead of the French Olympic champions.

The Women’s four (W4-) of Juliette Perry, Amelia Standing, Eleanor Brinkhoff and Martha Birtles finished in fifth place, accruing enough points to ensure they collected the World Rowing Cup trophy for that boat class.

The GBR2 Men’s pair (M2-) of Jake Wincomb and Louis Nares; the GBR2 Men’s four of James Vogel, Miles Beeson, Tom Ballinger and Jack Prior; George Bourne in the Men’s single sculls (M1x) and Scotland’s Jake Woods racing as GBR2 in the PR1 men’s single sculls (PR1 M1x) all finished fifth.

The GBR1 Women’s double sculls (W2x) crew of Jenny Bates and Freya Keto were sixth. The Men’s double sculls (M2x) GBR2 crew of Rory Harris and Tobias Schroder were second in the B final, placing eighth overall.

The post Five medals for Great Britain on final day at World Rowing Cup III appeared first on 91ÌÒÉ«.

GB Rowing currently sits top of the medal table with seven medals in total and have three further A finals to contest tomorrow.

Both the PR2 Mixed double sculls (PR2 Mix2x) and PR3 Mixed coxed four (PR3 Mix4+) won gold in the Paralympic class boats. In the Olympic class boats there was gold for the Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x), Lightweight Women’s double (LW2x) and the Men’s four (M4-) a silver in the Men’s pair (M2-) and a bronze in the Women’s four (W4-).

The Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x) of Lauren Henry, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Georgie Brayshaw had a real tussle with the Netherlands throughout the 2k course but kept their heads to win GB’s first World gold medal in that boat class since 2010. “It was absolutely amazing,” Lauren said, “We’ve practiced our race plan so many times, and we just executed it down to the wire. It was unbelievable. I’m so grateful to all these girls, they’ve helped me so much this season. It’s my first year on the team and my first World Championships and I can’t believe we’ve just won gold. I was so excited I let go of my blade at the finish! This season I was aiming to get a gold at U23s, so to get a gold at seniors is beyond anything.” Georgie added: “It’s a first senior gold medal for all of us, and to do it today it’s just like all the stars have aligned. We have worked so hard to get to this point, we’ve kept it calm, we lost a blade over the finish line but it doesn’t matter because I’m so proud of everyone!”

Emily Craig and Imogen Grant are now consecutive double World Champions in the Lightweight women’s double sculls (LW2x), as they continued their unbeaten run since the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. “I don’t have any words to describe how great that was!” Imogen said, “I feel like this whole Olympiad the excitement has been building. It’s an understatement to say how much we’ve improved in the last few months and I’m really excited to see what next season brings!” Emily added: “We missed out on the podium in Tokyo by such a small margin and I have the photo finish printed off, on my living room wall. It’s not a negative reminder anymore it’s more ‘look at how close we were in some incredibly trying circumstances’ and we are now at the point where we’ve had two exceptional seasons together and gained a wealth of experience so that the 6 minutes, 50 seconds of Tokyo 2021, pales into insignificance.”

Another boat celebrating becoming consecutive double World Champions were the Men’s four (M4-) of Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Freddie Davidson, who pulled away from the pack in the last 500m to win by over 2 seconds. Freddie said: “It was an epic race. We said beforehand, people are going to do crazy things, it’s a World Champs final, you don’t just go off and settle for second or third, so we knew it was going to be hot all the way down the field. I’m just amazed, all of us are, it was an epic crew effort and epic commitment all the way.”

Oli said: “With the unbeaten season that we’ve had I think we felt a lot of pressure coming into this, but at the end of the day if you’ve had a good season you want to finish on a high and we managed to do it. It was an epic row from these three guys in front of me, I felt I could sit back and do my thing while these guys were hauling today. I’m really happy for us.”

Double Paralympic Champion Lauren Rowles and former Royal Engineer Commando Gregg Stevenson won a tight race in the PR2 Mixed double sculls (PR2 Mix 2x), pulling away from China in the final strokes to cross the line first to continue their dominance in this boat class this season. Lauren said: “The China crew are phenomenal athletes. I raced them in Tokyo, they drove us out hard in Tokyo and they’ve driven us out hard here too. We were in the middle of that race and the Chinese started pushing back and we wanted to let them know that this is our day, this is our medal. For me I know they’re going to come out fighting, and that’s what we want! We want good racing, we want a great spectator sport! So for us that was a brilliant race.”

Gregg, celebrating his birthday as well as his first World Championship gold medal said: “I’ve never been in such a tight race, every other race we’ve managed to get out front. But that was something else and I was filled with adrenaline and we stuck at it together. I’m really glad we managed to get the win today.”

The PR3 Mixed coxed four (PR3 Mix4+) of Frankie Allen, Giedre Rakauskaite, Ed Fuller, Morgan Fice-Noyes and cox Erin Kennedy won another gold medal continuing the long running unbeaten status of the boat class. “It feels pretty special to be World Champions again,” Ed said, adding: “ It was special last year, but to be able to come back with a different crew and do exactly what we did last year is phenomenal. It wasn’t very easy out there, the headwind was strong and made quite hard work for us, but at the end of the day it’s about getting your bows across the lines first and that’s what we did.”

Frankie said: “It’s a privilege to be part of such an amazing crew. To qualify the boat for the Paralympics on Monday then topping off the week by winning gold today feels amazing.”

Erin, who has returned to cox the crew after her treatment and recovery from breast cancer said: “It’s been a big year. I remember this time last year I was at home feeling pretty sorry for myself but so proud of the team. I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time and so to be here and to be on the top of the podium with the best team in the world, I couldn’t be happier.”

Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George achieved their best World Championship result to date, winning silver in the Men’s pair (M2-). Ollie said: “Some things didn’t go our way today and that’s sport. We want to win, so today feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, but we did well to get that silver medal and we qualified the boat for Paris so from that perspective, I’m pleased.”

The Women’s four (W4-) of Heidi Long, Rowan McKellar, Helen Glover and Rebecca Shorten were a little disappointed with their third place bronze. Rowan said: “It’s not exactly what we were coming here for and I feel like we’ve just missed the mark today. We’ve stepped on in the last six weeks, throughout the regatta and that shows how much we can step on in the next year. It’s definitely made us hungry and I think it will set us up for a really good year.”

The Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) of Callum Dixon, George Bourne, Matt Haywood and Tom Barras narrowly missed out on a podium spot in the final strokes of the race to place fourth.

There was excitement earlier in the day with Olympic qualification places still up for grabs. Emily Ford and Esme Booth needed to finish fifth or above in the B final of the Women’s pair (W2-). It was an epic race and they worked their way through the field to finish third (9th overall) to secure Olympic qualification. Emily said: “It’s so exciting to qualify the pair and we could become the first British women to double up and qualify two boats if we get within the top five in the eight tomorrow. It would be awesome to make some history and we’re one step closer to that!” When asked about doubling up and the number of races across the regatta, Esme commented: “The sunglasses are hiding a few sins there! It’s one of the hardest races I think we’ve ever done, we just kept going earlier and earlier, we just wanted to get that bow ball ahead. Everyone says that qualification regattas are so hard and that was BIG!”

You can follow the World Rowing Championships live across 91ÌÒÉ« social media channels, here on our World Rowing Championships hub and on the . The BBC will be covering tomorrow’s racing as follows:

• All finals on BBC iPlayer live from 12pm (commentary from Katie Smith and James Cracknell)
• Highlights on BBC2 at 3pm (with Matthew Pinsent and Katherine Grainger in the studio).

Sign up for email updates

Results from Day Seven finals at 2023 World Rowing Championships

Photos: Benedict Tufnell.

The post Super Saturday for GB Rowing with seven medal haul appeared first on 91ÌÒÉ«.

GB Rowing Team has added six gold medals, three silver and a bronze to the bronze won yesterday by Olivia Bates (LW1x) placing top of the medal table at World Rowing Cup II. Highlights from an entertaining day of racing include a ‘clean sweep’ of golds for the men’s sweep squad and two World Best times for the Paralympic squad.

Summarising the weekend, Louise Kingsley, GB Rowing Director of Performance said: “Off the back of a solid European Championships we’ve been away, done more work, refined the crews, and I’m really pleased with how the team has come out and performed at this World Cup. Judging on the quality of racing here, there’s going to be stiff competition across the boat classes as we progress through the season.”

Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George took gold in the Men’s pair (M2-), three seconds ahead of Switzerland. Tom said: “We’re thrilled with the win. We’ve set our sights on qualifying for the Olympics and having a good World Championships at the end of the year, and this is a stepping stone to that, so we’re happy. But also we know we’re going back to the training centre on Tuesday and it’s going to be ‘right, onto the next one’, and that’s important too.

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / 91ÌÒÉ«

Overall, we were comfortable with what we were doing and we were happy with our race plan and we executed it well.”

The Men’s four (M4-) of Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Freddie Davidson maintained their winning streak despite pressure from Australia and USA. David said: “All the competition is tough from semis to final, so you’re always working harder. Regardless of competition, you have to step on to come away with a win.” Freddie added: “When it’s close in the race, we’re always looking to row well technically and keep pushing on and keep putting other crews under pressure. I think we did a solid job today, but we’re always looking to get better. I’m grateful we came away with a win.”

After being unable to race at the European Championships  due to illness, Harry Brightmore returned to cox the European Champions men’s eight (M8+) of Will Stewart, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Sholto Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Tom Digby, James Rudkin and Tom Ford to victory ahead of Australia and Germany. Jacob said: “Every race is both a challenge and an opportunity so it’s really good to be out here. We’re hungry and know that a result is only a result on the day and you have to prove it every time on the start line. There’s always pressure, but that’s why we do it.”

Sholto said: “The theme of this crew is to execute a clinical plan, we felt like we could improve after the preliminary race, and so today was just about staying in the moment one stroke at a time.

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / 91ÌÒÉ«

Lauren Rowles and Gregg Stevenson won their PR2 mixed double sculls (PR2 Mix 2x) race, finishing way ahead of the field, to record their second world best time at consecutive events (8.01.59). Lauren said: “We came out here wanting to go faster than we did in Bled and we did that so we’re happy. A win is what we train for, we want to be bold and take risks, doing things that haven’t been done before and putting down times that haven’t been done before.” Gregg added “Today was such a positive experience, really rewarding.”

Also continuing their unbeaten run with a World Best Time of 6:47.29 were the PR3 Mix4+ of Frankie Allen, Giedre Rakauskaite, Ed Fuller, Morgan Fice-Noyes and cox, Erin Kennedy. “At the end of the day we go out to get a gold medal, and we’re going to race hard for that medal. We knew with the conditions that the World record was a possibility, and I feel like we raced as hard as we could and it was an amazing achievement to have.” said Ed. Erin added: “This is huge. We started the season with a lot of momentum and it’s only building. It’s really exciting. We have more races to come this season, so hopefully when we get to qualification the unit will be rock solid. And who knows, if the weather gods are on our side, maybe we can achieve another world best time.”

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / 91ÌÒÉ«

Emily Craig and Imogen Grant rowed through the USA in the final strokes of the Lightweight women’s double sculls (LW2x) to add another World Cup gold to their World Best Time, European and World titles. Imogen described it as “quite a sprint finish!” with Emily saying: “We felt a bit of pressure having done what we did yesterday with the World Best Time. We came away from Euros chatting about how we had another gear, and we worked on that pretty hard. We knew we would be racing the USA and French here and you can’t underestimate the calibre of these crews and what they’ve spent the winter doing. We knew we’d have to take it to the line today and thank god we did.”

The Women’s quadruple sculls (W4x) of Lola Anderson, Georgie Brayshaw, Hannah Scott and Lauren Henry finished second behind China to take a hard earned silver medal. Lauren said: “we’re really happy with that race. It’s our first race in this new combination, so to push China so hard, we’re really chuffed with that.” Lola added: “We want more speed, to work together more as a crew, and win more medals. Hopefully we’ll take the step up to gold, so watch this space.”

The Women’s four (W4-). GBR1 of Heidi Long, Helen Glover, Rebecca Shorten and Sam Redgrave also won silver ahead of the USA. Rebecca said: “I think we could’ve done a bit better – we can still step on, we’re still learning with this combination.” Sam added: “We’ve definitely stepped on since Bled, but everyone has stepped on so we’ll keep building for the next race.”

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / 91ÌÒÉ«

With three crews racing in the women’s eight (W8+) , no one wanted to miss out on the two podium spots. The GB crew of Lauren Irwin, Karen Bennett, Hattie Taylor, Emily Ford, Rowan McKellar, Esme Booth, Natasha Morrice, Annie Campbell-Orde and cox Henry Fieldman kept calm and held off Canada to grab the silver medal. Karen said: “At the start we knew what was out in front of us so we just did our best to build throughout the weekend. It was great to finish it off with a silver. We’d obviously like it to be gold but we’re still building so it’s a good step in the right direction.”

The Men’s quadruple sculls (M4x) of Callum Dixon, George Bourne, Matt Haywood and Tom Barras hung on in a tight race to win a bronze medal. “We’re in the building phase right now” said Matt, adding, “we’re still quite a new crew with the addition of Callum and we’ve been working hard from Bled to here. We weren’t happy coming off the back of Europeans where we didn’t quite get our final right so we’ve had to work hard with a good mindset and a hunger for more.”

Credit: Benedict Tufnell / 91ÌÒÉ«

Annie Caddick and Sam Murray had a solid race in the PR3 mixed double sculls (PR3 Mix 2x) but couldn’t hang on to a podium spot in the final stages and finished in 4th place. Before racing in the Women’s Eight, Rowan McKellar & Esme Booth also raced in the Women’s pair (W2-) final (GBR1), finishing in 5th place.

Earlier in the day, the Women’s pair (W2-) of Natasha Morrice and Annie Campbell-Orde (GBR2), the Men’s Double sculls (M2x) of John Collins and Aidan Thompson and Kyra Edwards in the women’s single sculls (W1x) all won their B finals, placing 7th overall.

In the other B finals, the Women’s four (W4-) GBR2 of Lauren Irwin, Karen Bennett, Hattie Taylor and Emily Ford, and the Women’s double sculls (W2x) of Lucy Glover and Saskia Budgett finished 9th and 10th overall respectively.

GB Rowing Team Final Results at World Rowing Cup II 2023

The post Great Britain finish top of medal table at World Rowing Cup II 2023 appeared first on 91ÌÒÉ«.

Louise Kingsley, Director of Performance for the GB Rowing Team said: “This has been a solid start to the 2023 season and there have been some stunning performances out on the lake but there is still work to be done as we progress towards the World Championships later this year.”

Double Paralympic Champion, Lauren Rowles and new partner Gregg Stevenson put in one of the performances of the weekend to set a new World Best time of 08:02.94 in the PR2 mixed double sculls (PR2 Mix 2x). Speaking before collecting their gold medal Lauren said: “You can’t do much better than that. Certainly one of those days of your career that you will look back on and think it was a special day. One of the best – especially with this guy. We’re having so much fun rowing together – he turns up with the determination and perseverance to make this boat go faster and it’s given me the lease of life to do the same.”

This is what it’s all about.” said Gregg, reflecting on winning gold in his first international regatta, adding: “it’s been my first racing experience and a real learning curve, but there’s sunshine, a fast course, beautiful Bled and rowing with Lauren. She’s the GOAT!”

The Men’s four (M4-) of Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge and Freddie Davidson retained their title as European Champions with a convincing clear water win. Matt said: “We’re very happy with that. It’s quite scrappy out there, windy and bouncy, but we dealt with it well. We got out and didn’t let anyone back in. We’re a new crew so we don’t want to put too much pressure on ourselves – we’re 50% different from last year’s crew, but the two guys have jumped in and did amazingly well.”

Freddie added: “We were expecting it to be bouncy so we were ready for it. I looked down and we were going a lot faster than I expected which was good. It’s a case of trying to keep it clean and not lose any speed, and I’m happy with how we did that. Now the focus is to take this, go to the next world cup with no expectations and be free to do our race plan and see where we end up. That’s our ethos in the four – go in with no expectations and enjoy our rowing and the racing and see what we get out of it.”

The final gold medal of the day came in the PR3 Mix4+ with Erin Kennedy (cox), Frankie Allen, Giedre Rakauskaite, Ed Fuller and Morgan Fice-Noyes continuing to dominate in this boat class.

Erin, who was returning to the team after being given the all clear from breast cancer said: “I’ve run that moment over my head many times. I keep crying. It means so much to me to be back because the last time I raced was at the Europeans last summer where I was quite poorly, but I managed to get through. To be back here doing it again with a new combination and be European Champions is amazing. It goes to the credit of the team behind the team as well for everything they do to get us out and racing.”

Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George picked up another European silver Men’s pair (M2-) medal after a photo finish which saw them just edged out by the Swiss. “It would’ve been nice to come home with the win,” said Ollie, with Tom adding: “It’s a strong field and something that we can learn from. There’s a bit to build on as we move through the year, but a good start to the season overall.”

The Women’s Eight (W8+) of Emily Ford, Esme Booth, Sam Redgrave, Lauren Irwin, Annie Campbell-Orde, Natasha Morrice, Karen Bennett, Hattie Taylor and cox, Henry Fieldman also won a silver medal.

Speaking after the race, Rio 2016 silver medallist and Tokyo 2020 Olympian, Karen Bennett said: “It was definitely a blast from the past for sure. The last race I did was the Olympics so it’s just refreshing my memory and going out there and getting everything back on track. It’s great to be back in the team alongside these girls who are just fantastic, and Henry as well of course. So we’re getting back into the swing of things and a silver medal here is a great start to the season. There’s still a lot of racing to come and hopefully we can step on as we go.”

Emily Ford and Esme Booth who doubled up, finished fifth in the Women’s pair (W2-) before picking up their silver in the Women’s Eight.

Olivia Bates finished 8th overall after a tight B final race in the Lightweight women’s single sculls (LW1x) while Saskia Budgett and Kyra Edwards finished 9th overall in the B final of the Women’s double sculls (W2x).

Finals Results  at the 2023 European Rowing Championships

The post Great Britain tops medal table at European Rowing Championships appeared first on 91ÌÒÉ«.