Local rowers impress for GB at World U23 Championships

Welsh rowers were outside the medals but put in promising performances for the GB Rowing Team at the World U23 Championships in Lithuania, ahead of the the 2016 Olympic cycle.

The Lottery-funded GB team won three medals at the annual Championships, with Caragh McMurtry and Olivia Carnegie-Brown winning a stunning silver in the women's pair - GB's first women's medal at this level for three years, - the men's four earning a hard-fought bronze less than a second off silver, and the men's pair of Kieren Emery and Matthew Tarrant winning an outstanding gold on Sunday.

Rebecca Chin from Conwy finished a very close fourth, just pipped to the medals in the women's eight, while her club team-mate at Agecroft RC in Manchester, Cardiff's Zak Lee-Green, who started rowing at Llandaff RC, finished second in the B final of the lightweight men's double scull, with Hereford's Jamie Coombes to finish eighth in the world after narrowly missing out on a place in the A final.

Joshua Bugajski, also from Cardiff, finished fifth in the B final of the men's quadruple scull, 11th overall. 
 
"I'm very pleased with the medals," said GB Rowing Team performance director David Tanner. "The men's four are an ambitious outfit and would like to have bettered the bronze they won last year in the eight but given the limited amount of time they had to prepare, this was a good result and they produced their best race."

Team manager for the U23s, Steve Gunn added: "It has been a good performance overall, and the men's pair was an impressive win, but we also had a number of near misses. The men's double and the lightweight women won their B final so strongly and the two eights rowed fantastically well. They're disappointed even though they've done so well, but that just reflects their ambition and the tightness of the racing here.

"In terms of development, half the team had never been to a World Championship before and a lot have shown the potential to step up for Rio 2016. It was a strong team performance." 

In the blue-riband eights finals, the British women were part of a rousing finale. The GB crew of Aberdeen's Iona Riley, Rebecca Chin from Conwy, Tees rower Josephine Wratten, University of Bath rower Amelda Gare from Richmond, Evesham's Yasmin Tredell, Glasgow's Claire McKeown, Bicester's Fiona Gammond, Olivia Oakes from Warrington and cox Charlotte Jackson from Durham University Boat Club started well, half a length up on the pack along with the USA, who won the preliminary race for lanes yesterday. 

By halfway, the USA were edging ahead and the GB crew were stroking hard in search of silver just ahead of Germany. But in the tense, closing sprint, first Germany and then Holland clawed back the British crew to deny them a medal by less than a second, with GB finishing fourth.

You could throw a blanket over the lightweight men's double scull field at halfway in their B final but the GB boat of Cardiff's Zak Lee-Green and Hereford's Jamie Coombes would have had it's bow ball poking out in front. 

Hungary and GB emerged as the contenders for first place ahead of Belgium, Canada and Italy in the chasing pack, and the British double dug in to claim second, just eight tenths of a second behind winners Hungary.

Bugajski and his crew-mates were still very much in the mix of the men's quadruple scull B final with 500m to go. The finish line couldn't quite come soon enough though as they faded to finish fifth behind winners Germany, Estonia, Russia and Romania, but held off Switzerland in sixth.

The GB four of Andrew Holmes, a 2009 World Junior Champion from Lochwinnoch who rows for Castle Semple Rowing Club,  George Rossiter from Newcastle University Boat Club, Shrewsbury's Patrick Lapage and Michael Evans from Ramsbury in Wiltshire. showed their fighting spirit, snatching bronze from the Americans in a sprint finish. The GB crew were in the pack as the race headed towards its conclusion with Germany and Australia just in front.

Holmes and his crew-mates kept their wits and reeled in the third-placed Americans stroke by stroke with the fastest final 500m of all the crews. The effort took them through the Americans and very close on the line to the Australian silver medallists to clinch a hard-fought medal to go with the bronze they won together in the eight last year.

Kieren Emery, from Newcastle, and Matthew Tarrant, from Shepperton in Surrey, raised their arms then pumped their fists after crossing the finish line in Trakai to add the World U23 title in the men's pair to the Lottery-funded GB squad's silver in the women's pair and bronze in the men's four from Saturday's finals.

It was Emery's second World U23 title in as many years after winning the 2011 lightweight pairs with Team GB's Peter Chambers, followed by the senior World title in the same event, before stepping up to openweight for 2012. For Tarrant, this was a major step up from the bronze he won in the 2011 men’s eight and is his first Championship title.

Leander Club's Emery and Oxford Brookes rower Tarrant were fastest off the start with South Africa, but by halfway, had a two second cushion on Germany in second and upped their rate at the finish to hold off the charge from South Africa, who rowed through the Germans to take silver.

The women's pair now have medals at U23 level to match the silvers they won as juniors in 2009, and showed a significant step on from their fifth-place finish together in the eight last year.

McMurtry, 20, from Southampton, and Oxford Brookes rower Carnegie-Brown, 21, charged out of the start and tussled bow ball to bow ball with the New Zealand pair of Kayla Pratt and Kelsey Bevan until half-way when the Kiwis cranked up their stroke rate to seize the lead and win.

The battle between these two boats left a huge gap between them and bronze-placed Germany, and the Brits followed the Kiwis home to win silver, a considerable distance ahead of the Germans in third.

The development work for the Lottery-funded GB U23 team continues with a number of the squad involved in preparations for the World University Rowing Championships in Kazan, Russia, from September 7th-9th, and the European Rowing Championships in Varese, Italy, from September 12th-16th.