Olympic bronze medallists Tom Ransley and Constantine Louloudis make their return to the men’s eight as Great Britain bid to sign off from the World Rowing Cup in style.
Having claimed men’s eight silver last time out in Aiguebelette just over a week ago, the GB Rowing Team have made changes in search of the gold in the third and final stage in Lucerne that gets underway on July 11.
Ransley and Louloudis, part of GB’s Olympic bronze-medal winning crew in 2012, both make a return to the crew in which Ransley is also a world champion.
Ransley returns after an injury lay-off and via the second-ranked men's four boat that reached the World Cup finals ten days ago, while Louloudis has won his seat through internal team testing since finishing his university studies for this year.
In addition, Paul Bennett and Matt Gotrel have moved from the men's pair, in which they made an impact by taking bronze in Aiguebelette, both exciting newcomers to the sport of rowing.
The crew, stroked again by Will Satch and coxed by Phelan Hill, will also contest the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta on Sunday July 6.
The shake-up sees James Foad and Matt Langridge take up the challenge of the men's pair at both Henley and Lucerne, whilst Alan Sinclair and Scott Durant race a men's pair at Henley and a coxed men's pair at Lucerne, steered by Henry Fieldman.
"It is a gradual process of selection during the season as we move towards the World Championships in Amsterdam in August ", said Chief Coach for Men Jurgen Grobler.
One new boat for Lucerne will be a lightweight women’s quad. The core of this boat will be the silver medal double from Aiguebelette of newcomer Charlotte Taylor and 2013 World Under-23 champion Ellie Piggott. They are joined by Ruth Walczak, silver medallist in the single in Aiguebelette, and Brianna Stubbs, Piggott’s 2013 doubles’ partner and U23 world champion.
Elsewhere the GB Rowing Team is largely unchanged for Lucerne from the squad that performed so strongly in Aiguebelette.
Alex Gregory, Mohamed Sbihi, George Nash and Andrew Triggs Hodge – all Olympic medallists from 2012 in different boats – were in stunning form to win world cup men's four gold in France and home spectators will have the chance to see them in action at Henley before they race in Lucerne.
The open weight men's double and Olympic bronze medallist in the single Alan Campbell will contest both regattas as will the World Cup men's quad winners in France – Graeme Thomas, Sam Townsend, Charles Cousins and Peter Lambert. Campbell returns after the birth of his daughter two weeks ago.
"We are pleased to race our top boats at Henley Royal Regatta in its 175th anniversary year with some of our top-line crews and look forward to seeing how they race there before we take on what looks set to be another strong field at the world cup in the following week,” said GB Rowing Team Performance Director Sir David Tanner.
“We had some tremendous results in France at the last world cup and, whilst Lucerne hasn't historically been the place where we shine the brightest, we are in good shape as a squad before our summer pre-Worlds training camps.”
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