Two golds, a silver and a bronze for GB Rowing Team
3rd September 2011"Masterful and mature" was how GB Rowing Team Performance Director David Tanner described Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger's World Championships victory in the women's double scull on Slovenia's Lake Bled today.
Britain also won gold in the lightweight women's quadruple scull, silver in the men's pair and a bronze from Alan Campbell in the men's single scull.
For Watkins and Grainger the second successive World title was sweeter than 2010 as Watkins struggled early in this season with a back injury.
"It was a fantastic race for us, really really challenging", said Grainger.
"It was a much tougher run into the World Championships this year. It was a huge challenge and we rose to it brilliantly and it's absolutely the best preparation for next year", added Watkins of the coming Olympic season.
Olympic men's four champions Andrew Triggs Hodge and Pete Reed fought determinedly to break Eric Murray and Hamish Bond's stronghold on the World men's pair title but the Kiwis proved too strong in a race which was conducted at such pace that the winning crew was only half a second off a world best time in still rather than tailwind conditions.
Reed and Hodge took silver with Italy in bronze rather than the expected Canadian challenge from Beijing medallists Dave Calder and Scott Frandsen.
"That was a fast race, almost world record pace", said Hodge afterwards. "Whatever happens next it will be the same for every single member of the GB team aiming for London. We will go away and train harder, be more determined and totally focussed on the next 11 months".
Alan Campbell followed the men's pair medal with bronze in the men's single scull. A gutsy first-half performance guaranteed him the medal but, having set the early pace, he lacked the strength to hold off winner Mahe Drysdale and silver medallist Ondrej Synek.
"That was a brave race. It's good to see Alan back in a complete transformation of his earlier season difficulties", said Tanner.
"I would have liked to get the gold in this race but it was so painful in the second half. I had to take the risk. I wanted to stretch the field out", said Campbell.
Earlier the British team picked up a big bonus in the shape of gold in the international class lightweight women's quad. Steph Cullen, Imogen Walsh, Kathryn Twyman and Andrea Dennis led from start to bubble-line finish to win in style.
Paralympic hopefuls Nick Beighton and Sam Scowen closed out their debut World Championships with a sixth place finish in the final whilst the British men's quad won their B final to qualify this boat for London 2012 - finishing their campaign here strongly after a slow start.
With more finals to come tomorrow, Britain has already qualified 13 of a potential 14 boats, featuring 47 rowers, for the Olympic Games and three Paralympic boats. Frances Houghton races the B final of the women's single scull tomorrow to see if GB can get the full Olympic set.
"Our Olympic class medals have been very strong today and it was a big bonus to get gold in the light women's quad, said
Tanner. "We can also be very pleased with our semi-finals, especially the men's four and lightweight men's double. Neither final tomorrow will be easy but they have put themselves in a good position".
The same applies to the mixed adaptive coxed four who cruised to victory ahead of Canada in their semi-final today.
Sophie Hosking and Hester Goodsell also qualified today for tomorrow's final in the lightweight women's double scull with a tight third place in today's semis.