GB Rowing Team has had its best world cup season ever
12th July 2010The GB Rowing Team has had its best world cup season ever, culminating in four golds, four silvers and three bronzes on Lucerne's Rotsee in the biggest world cup of all time.
"This is our best world cup season ever. All the world was here in Lucerne so to come away with so many medals has been an exceptional whole team performance', said GB Rowing Team Performance Director, David Tanner.
"I'm very proud of our rowers, coaches, and the back-up team that has helped us produce this level of results", added the man not normally known for getting emotional.
Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins delivered two of the golds when they delivered a brace of dominant wins in the double and quadruple scull events - the latter in tandem with Beth Rodford and Annabel Vernon.
"This has been very special", said Grainger afterwards. "The days don't get much better than this", added Watkins.
The lightweight men's four came from behind to win by a whisker from world champions Denmark to gain GB's third gold and the fourth had earlier come from a powerful men's four performance.
Whilst the men's pair and lightweight women's double scull were disappointed with silvers they vowed to draw on that feeling as motivation in the months before the World Championships in November in New Zealand.
Conversely Alan Campbell reversed a downbeat spell to win silver in today's single scull final with all the world's top racers in action here bar Marcel Hacker of Germany who is injured. Marcus Bateman and Matt Wells, in the double scull, lost out to their French rivals to take silver but were upbeat about a consistent season in which, as a new combination, they have learnt a lot.
The still-developing GB men's quadruple scull were bronze medallists in a tough field and the two GB eights gave a rousing end to the day's racing programme by each taking a bronze medal - the men having to beat the Olympic champions to do so.
"It's like a dream to win so many medals at Lucerne", said men's chief coach Jurgen Grobler of the place which annually hosts the world cup finals.
Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase were beaten as a lightweight men's double scull in a major event for the first time since the 2007 World Championships when they took fifth place here and Debbie Flood, coming back into full training and competition after a year out of the sport, was also fifth in the single scull.
Great Britain's performances across the season meant that they won the overall world cup for the third year in succession taking the overall world cup title in eight of the Olympic class events.
The World Championship will be held in Lake Karapiro in New Zealand from 31st October to 7th November 2010.