Olympic champions Helen Glover, Andrew Triggs Hodge, Pete Reed and Alex Gregory all won gold at the opening World Rowing Cup of the season as Britain left Sydney with seven medals.
Glover, who won Olympic gold in the women’s pair at London 2012 with Heather Stanning, was partnering Polly Swann in Australia but it made little difference as they got Britain’s medal rush going.
They claimed gold at a canter with a lead of two lengths at the halfway stage before clocking a winning time of 7:03.55minutes while a second British crew of Katie Greves and Jessica Eddie were fifth.
Kathryn Twyman and Imogen Walsh were the next to medal, coming home with bronze in the women’s lightweight double scull and Adam Freeman Pask and Richard Chambers took Britain’s second gold in the men’s equivalent.
Three medals became four as Frances Houghton and Victoria Meyer Laker won bronze in the double scull with British teammates Beth Rodford and Victoria Thornley one place behind in fourth.
Peter Chambers, Jonathan Clegg, Chris Boddy and Chris Bartley claimed the fifth with silver in the lightweight men’s four before an historic first World Cup gold for the British men’s quadruple scull.
Bill Lucas, Graeme Thomas, Charles Cousins and Sam Townsend all came together to achieve the feat, almost four seconds ahead of New Zealand in second.
And the British men’s eight which included three of the Olympic champions from the four at London 2012 Triggs Hodge, Reed and Gregory, closed proceedings in similar fashion with medal number seven and gold number four.
The British eight moved into an early lead and then persisted strongly to hold off late challenges from the USA and Australia for a winning time of 5:29.90 in Sydney.
Of the five remaining crews in finals, the British women’s eight were fourth as were Monica Relph, Zoe Lee, Olivia Carnegie-Brown and Tina Stiller in the quadruple scull.
And three other men’s crews were all fourth also – the men’s four, Jonathan Walton in the single scull and John Colins and Peter Lambert in the double scull in Sydney.
The next World Cup leg isn’t until June on the London 2012 Olympic waters at Eton Dorney and British performance director Sir David Tanner admitted the outing in Australia was a beneficial one.
“It’s been great to get some top level racing so early in the year especially as we start the Rio cycle. I am very pleased with our four gold medals each of them special in their own way,” said Tanner.
“Our objective here was to give a good outing to our returning Olympians and to blood a significant number of rowers new to the world cup scene.
“We can go away with some good lessons learnt and look forward to the second world cup at Eton Dorney on our home waters in June.”
© Sportsbeat 2013