GB Rowing

[Rafa Maciel 1,464]

It looks like over the last few weeks, British Rowing have completed the first couple of events for their 2024 team selection. There are no details published on the federation website, so have no idea of times or any real detail on the results, but I have been able to piece together some information from various news organisations:

 

Men's Sweep Squad

• Last year's M2- Ollie Wynne-Griffith and Tom George didn't take part in the November trials because George was ill. Wynne-Griffith paired up with Morgan Bolding and finished 4th.
• Jacob Dawson and Sholto Carnegie were the top pairing ahead of Freddie Davidson and Matthew Aldridge. 
• Will Stewart and James Robson finished 3rd. Neither rower had a seat in the 2023 crews so this strong performance will have caught attention of selectors. 
• It was a relatively poor performance from David Ambler and Oli Wilkes.
• In the December trials, Will Stewart teamed up with Tom George to take the victory. 

 

Given the depth of the sweep squad, I don't think the crew make-up will be clear until after the April trials.

 

Men's Sculling Squad

• The members of last year's M4x were the top 4 finishers at the open trial in November with Tom Barras taking top spot ahead of George Bourne, Callum Dixon and Matt Haywood.
• 5th place at November trial went to Cedol Dafydd - he's not someone that I am familiar with but seems to have come up through the GB Development Academy.
• Graeme Thomas looks like he is back from the injury that kept him out of action for the 2023 season. He won the M1x event at the December trial ahead of George Bourne.

 

In all likelihood, I think that barring injuries, the selectors will probably stick with the same M4x crew from last year whilst Graeme Thomas is probably back in the mix for the M1x. The M2x is more difficult to call - partly because GB don't have a huge depth in the sculling team - and the M2x crew last year had a horror show at the worlds (25th) so the selectors may look to the future and pair up the youngster Dafydd with Miles Devereux as they look to qualify for Paris at the final Olympic qualifying regatta. 

 

Women's Sculling Squad

• Lauren Henry took top spot in the W1x. Her crew mates from last year's W4x Lola Anderson and Georgie Brayshaw were 3rd and 5th.
• Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne - returning to the squad after maternity leave - took second place. Hodgkins Byrne was part of the squad that finished 7th in Tokyo Olympics.
• Lightweight pair of Emily Craig and Imogen Grant finished in 4th and 6th and look set to remain  best prospect for gold medal in Paris.
• Lola Anderson won the December trial with a "statement victory" - should point out that in the limited reporting of the December trials, everyone had a statement victory and the news stories are simply copy and paste jobs.

 

Women's Sweep Squad

• There was no specific sweep trial in November - so the sweep squad took part in the sculling trial.
• Rowan Mckellar and Heidi Long were the top pairing at the December trial. 

 

As with the men's sweep squad, the crew make-up wont be established until the seat racing trials in April. I am expecting there to be crew changes this year, as selectors will be keen to avoid the rowers doubling up. 

 

As with the men's sculling squad, the W4x is pretty established and, having won the world champs last year, selectors may be reluctant to make too many changes going into Paris. The return of Hodgkins Byrne does at least give the selectors some options around the W1x and W2x going into the final qualifying regatta with Hodgkins Byrne, Kyra Edwards, Saskia Budgett and Lucy Glover fighting for those 3 seats. 

[RussB 47]

Thanks Rafa for this insight - what are your early medal predictions for GB boats at Paris?

 

Mens 4 & Womens L2X look like our best gold chances, with perhaps the W4X, and M8, W4, M2 representing good medal chances

[Rafa Maciel 1,464]

5 hours ago, RussB said:

Thanks Rafa for this insight - what are your early medal predictions for GB boats at Paris?

 

Mens 4 & Womens L2X look like our best gold chances, with perhaps the W4X, and M8, W4, M2 representing good medal chances

Generally I am a bit wary about prophesising medals whilst we're still in the middle of winter training but it would be a major surprise (and disappointment) if Craig and Grant didn't secure the gold medal in LW2x.

 

I guess the good news is that based on last years performances, the men's sweep squad will have medal chances in all three classes but at this stage, I wouldn't say any are nailed on certainties for gold.

 

I think the M2- would likely be the weakest link - not because the crew isn't capable, but the competition in the class is pretty stiff. 

 

The M4- should medal - but then we thought the same going into Tokyo - but  could emerge as gold medal contenders. It will be difficult as they don't tend to compete as much on the international circuit. Traditional foes,  would need to see an improvement on their 2023 pace if they are going to be challenging for top spot on the podium.

 

The M8+ has such a small field and GB has such strength on the men's side that again a medal should be achievable. 

 

On the men's sculling side, currently we have only qualified the M4x and whilst it is not beyond possibility that they could sneak a minor medal, it would be a bit of a surprise. I am expecting  to be the big winners in the sculling classes. The immediate question for GB is whether we can qualify for the M1x and/or M2x at final qualifying regatta.

 

The women's sculling prospects are much like those of the men. Whilst we have had some great results in the W4x in the past, I think the WC Gold last year was beyond expectations and I think it will be tough to repeat in Paris. Again I expect  to be featuring in the medals and  are always strong in this boat.

 

Finally, the women's sweep crews will have medal chances in both W4- and W8+. Interestingly, Gracenote's predictions had the W4- slated for a gold medal and personally I would love to see Helen Glover signing off her Olympic journey by standing on the top step of the podium again.  The big unknown for the women's side is whether any of the crews will double up. From what I can gather, the selectors are looking to avoid anyone having to double up as it is felt that the fact that Booth and Ford had doubled up in the pair and eight could have contributed to them missing out on the bronze medal in the 8.  

 

Ultimately everything is going to come down to who has managed to get through the winter without picking up an injury and then how they perform in the April trials which will determine crew allocations but all things considered, I think there is every reason for British Rowing to be confident going into the new season.

[Rafa Maciel 1,464]

 sending a stacked squad to the Varese World Cup event later this month:

 

Great Britain selects team for World Rowing Cup I - British Rowing

 

Only slight concern is the absence of women's scullers - no singe and no pair entered. Hopefully that doesn't mean that GB Rowing have written off those boats for the last chance regatta. 

 

No lightweight men's double either, but that is less of a surprise as I get the feeling that the lightweight program on the men's side has been getting wound down for a while now.  

[RussB 47]

Not sure if anyone has been following the European championships this weekend, but a few points of summary:

 - The men's sweep squad was looking dominant with strong wins across the pair, 4 and 8. In particular the 4 looked so much better than their narrow defeat in Varese when narrowly chased down by the Italians.

- The women's quadruple sculls looked back on form with a dominant win, after being off the pace in Varese.

- The men's quad sculls was 4th in a tight race in one of the few near misses of the event.

- GB topped the medal table with 8 golds, 1 silver, 1 bronze including the para events.

 - Netherlands did not compete with their A crews.

- There was a severe crosswind on both days which made lane order vital (determined from the heats performance).

 

 

[Rafa Maciel 1,464]

State of play with 2 more international regattas before Paris.

 

Men's Sweep Crews:

Men's Eight - Followed up their win in Varese with relatively comfortable win at the European Champs. The early season signs are positive that GB should have the measure of Romania and Germany but we've yet to see what the Australian crew can do given this is apparently their top crew for Paris. Will be interesting to see which nations get the final two tickets at the last chance regatta - assume one will be USA and the second will be fought out between Canada and Italy.

 

Men's Four - Beaten twice by a fast-finishing Italian crew at Varese, they steadied the ship/boat in Szeged winning with clear water. The French crew were a bit closer than I would have expected in the heat you don't win anything in the heats so no need to do more than you need to qualify for the finals. Don't think there is any reason to read too much into the defeat in Varese, but this is another class where we really need to see the crews from USA, New Zealand and Australia.

 

Men's Pair - Wynne Griffith and George finally made it to the top step of the medal podium by taking the European title although the Romanians were closely them down pretty quickly in the final stages of the final. They'll take a lot of confidence from the fact that's back-to-back defeats of the Swiss world champions. 

 

Women's Sweep Crews:

Women's Eight - It's good to see that the selectors are giving the women's eight a decent shot at medaling in Paris. In both Varese and Szeged, the Brits put themselves in a good position but ultimately came unstuck in the second half of the race with Romania able to go from half a length down to half a length up in the space of less than 500m. It's difficult to know the extent to which GB Rowing were prioritising the European champs this year and where they are in their training schedule, but given that that most of the Romanian crew had doubled up in other events, it's a bit disappointing that the Brits weren't able to respond when the Romanians rowed through.

 

Women's Four - In 2022 the women's four were the in-form boat, winning both the World and European Championships. A crew change last year seemed to knock the balance of the crew out of sync and they went from the top of the podium to struggling to medal. They lost their European title to Romania and World title to Netherlands. Going into 2024, the crew have been shuffled again, and the early signs are that the balance has been restored. A win in Varese was followed up this week with the regaining of the European title with the crew able to hold off the fast-finishing Romanians.

 

Women's Pair - Probably the weakest British crew across the 6 sweep boats but worth bearing in mind this is a new crew for this season. Edwards & Brew finished 4th in Varese but struggled with the conditions in Szeged where they finished in 5th. Hopefully they can build their season so that they can be competitive when they get to Paris.

 

Lightweight Crews

Women's Lightweight Sculls - I will admit I did a double take when I saw that GB had lost to Greece in the heats. I hadn't realised that it was a scratch crew put together when Emily Craig had to withdraw with an injury. Let's hope the withdrawal was precautionary as Craig & Grant are the closest we have to nailed on certainty for a gold in Paris. 

 

Men's Sculling Crews

Men's Quadruple Sculls - One of our most frustrating crews who can't seem to find the consistency that would bring them to the podium in Paris. They put if a strong performance in Varese finishing behind the Dutch world champions. unfortunately they couldn't replicate that in Szeged where they finished in 4th place - behind the Italian and Swiss crews that they had beaten just a couple of weeks earlier. 

 

Men's Double Sculls - The first of our unqualified crews. The pairing of Collins & Devereaux haven't been able to show the kind of form that would suggest they will be able to get one of the last 2 spots in Paris. In Varese, they won the B final whilst in the European champs, they were 9th overall. On the form we've seen so far this year, Greece, Belgium and Australia have all shown that they can beat the Brits.

 

Men's Single Sculls - It looks like George Bourne has been given the challenge of securing the quota for the event at the last chance regatta next month. He looked good in Varese where he finished 4th behind World Champion Zeidler, World Silver medalist Van Dorp and Italy's Murmolo. He struggled a bit in Szeged. Although he won his heat, he had to put in a mighty sprint in the semi-final and had nothing left when it came to the final and finished in 6th place some 20 seconds behind Zeidler. If he's going to book a spot in Paris, he will need a top-2 finish in the last chance regatta. 

 

Women's Sculling Crews

Women's Quadruple Sculls - It all went a bit wrong for the crew in Varese where they finished off the podium in 4th. Whatever changes they made in the last couple of weeks seems to have paid off. Although the Ukrainians led for three quarters of the race, the Brits were able to row through and ended up with a comfortable win. Hopefully we see them go head-to-head against the Dutch in Lucerne 

 

Women's Double Sculls - A new pairing for 2024 - Hodgkins-Byrne & Wilde opened their season at the Europeans where they won the B-final to finish 7th overall. They are going to need to find a bit of speed if they are going to qualify for Paris at the last chance regatta. 

 

Women's Single Sculls - We didn't field an entry in Varese World Cup or at the Europeans so not sure whether that means that we are not going to go after the quota at the last chance regatta.

 

Overall, I would say that we are in a pretty good place with good medal prospects in 6-8 of the events - but then I'd probably have said the same thing going into Tokyo.

 

I'm probably not as confident when it comes to our prospects for the final qualifying regatta but will reserve judgement until the entry lists are published. 

[Orangehair43 177]

27 minutes ago, Rafa Maciel said:

State of play with 2 more international regattas before Paris.

 

Men's Sweep Crews:

Men's Eight - Followed up their win in Varese with relatively comfortable win at the European Champs. The early season signs are positive that GB should have the measure of Romania and Germany but we've yet to see what the Australian crew can do given this is apparently their top crew for Paris. Will be interesting to see which nations get the final two tickets at the last chance regatta - assume one will be USA and the second will be fought out between Canada and Italy.

 

Men's Four - Beaten twice by a fast-finishing Italian crew at Varese, they steadied the ship/boat in Szeged winning with clear water. The French crew were a bit closer than I would have expected in the heat you don't win anything in the heats so no need to do more than you need to qualify for the finals. Don't think there is any reason to read too much into the defeat in Varese, but this is another class where we really need to see the crews from USA, New Zealand and Australia.

 

Men's Pair - Wynne Griffith and George finally made it to the top step of the medal podium by taking the European title although the Romanians were closely them down pretty quickly in the final stages of the final. They'll take a lot of confidence from the fact that's back-to-back defeats of the Swiss world champions. 

 

Women's Sweep Crews:

Women's Eight - It's good to see that the selectors are giving the women's eight a decent shot at medaling in Paris. In both Varese and Szeged, the Brits put themselves in a good position but ultimately came unstuck in the second half of the race with Romania able to go from half a length down to half a length up in the space of less than 500m. It's difficult to know the extent to which GB Rowing were prioritising the European champs this year and where they are in their training schedule, but given that that most of the Romanian crew had doubled up in other events, it's a bit disappointing that the Brits weren't able to respond when the Romanians rowed through.

 

Women's Four - In 2022 the women's four were the in-form boat, winning both the World and European Championships. A crew change last year seemed to knock the balance of the crew out of sync and they went from the top of the podium to struggling to medal. They lost their European title to Romania and World title to Netherlands. Going into 2024, the crew have been shuffled again, and the early signs are that the balance has been restored. A win in Varese was followed up this week with the regaining of the European title with the crew able to hold off the fast-finishing Romanians.

 

Women's Pair - Probably the weakest British crew across the 6 sweep boats but worth bearing in mind this is a new crew for this season. Edwards & Brew finished 4th in Varese but struggled with the conditions in Szeged where they finished in 5th. Hopefully they can build their season so that they can be competitive when they get to Paris.

 

Lightweight Crews

Women's Lightweight Sculls - I will admit I did a double take when I saw that GB had lost to Greece in the heats. I hadn't realised that it was a scratch crew put together when Emily Craig had to withdraw with an injury. Let's hope the withdrawal was precautionary as Craig & Grant are the closest we have to nailed on certainty for a gold in Paris. 

 

Men's Sculling Crews

Men's Quadruple Sculls - One of our most frustrating crews who can't seem to find the consistency that would bring them to the podium in Paris. They put if a strong performance in Varese finishing behind the Dutch world champions. unfortunately they couldn't replicate that in Szeged where they finished in 4th place - behind the Italian and Swiss crews that they had beaten just a couple of weeks earlier. 

 

Men's Double Sculls - The first of our unqualified crews. The pairing of Collins & Devereaux haven't been able to show the kind of form that would suggest they will be able to get one of the last 2 spots in Paris. In Varese, they won the B final whilst in the European champs, they were 9th overall. On the form we've seen so far this year, Greece, Belgium and Australia have all shown that they can beat the Brits.

 

Men's Single Sculls - It looks like George Bourne has been given the challenge of securing the quota for the event at the last chance regatta next month. He looked good in Varese where he finished 4th behind World Champion Zeidler, World Silver medalist Van Dorp and Italy's Murmolo. He struggled a bit in Szeged. Although he won his heat, he had to put in a mighty sprint in the semi-final and had nothing left when it came to the final and finished in 6th place some 20 seconds behind Zeidler. If he's going to book a spot in Paris, he will need a top-2 finish in the last chance regatta. 

 

Women's Sculling Crews

Women's Quadruple Sculls - It all went a bit wrong for the crew in Varese where they finished off the podium in 4th. Whatever changes they made in the last couple of weeks seems to have paid off. Although the Ukrainians led for three quarters of the race, the Brits were able to row through and ended up with a comfortable win. Hopefully we see them go head-to-head against the Dutch in Lucerne 

 

Women's Double Sculls - A new pairing for 2024 - Hodgkins-Byrne & Wilde opened their season at the Europeans where they won the B-final to finish 7th overall. They are going to need to find a bit of speed if they are going to qualify for Paris at the last chance regatta. 

 

Women's Single Sculls - We didn't field an entry in Varese World Cup or at the Europeans so not sure whether that means that we are not going to go after the quota at the last chance regatta.

 

Overall, I would say that we are in a pretty good place with good medal prospects in 6-8 of the events - but then I'd probably have said the same thing going into Tokyo.

 

I'm probably not as confident when it comes to our prospects for the final qualifying regatta but will reserve judgement until the entry lists are published. 

Going by her Instagram post it doesn’t sound too serious. I think it might not even be an inury through but a health issue -lots of get well soon comments from those in the know. 

[Grassmarket 2,812]

1 hour ago, Rafa Maciel said:

State of play with 2 more international regattas before Paris.

 

 

Women's Single Sculls - We didn't field an entry in Varese World Cup or at the Europeans so not sure whether that means that we are not going to go after the quota at the last chance regatta.

 

 

Has always been the red-headed stepchild of British sports. No matter what they say in Years 1 & 2, anyone who is any good gets dragged into a crew boat by Olympic year.

Edited April 29 by Grassmarket

[Rafa Maciel 1,464]

Just watched back a couple of the races form this weekend and my one area of concern for the British team would be lack of a sprint finish. All of the crews were routinely under-rating the rest of the field and for the most part, they were able to do that whilst matching or exceeding the speed of the competition but when the races got into the last quarter of the race, nations like Italy and Romania upped their rate in 42-44 whereas the Brits rarely upped their rate to 40+. 

[Olympicsnell 28]

I was impressed with the GB showing at the europeans, and yes we did it before tokyo as well, but this performance just felt stronger. I'd hang my hat on at least 2 golds in Paris, and hopefully with a strong camp that results in the development of above mentioned sprint finishes maybe get a couple more. It's certainly a good spot to be under rating everyone. 

Just very hard to tell at the moment with nations peaking for the final chance qualifier, and majority of GB boats (hopefully) not at thier peak yet

Main concern of a boat i guess would be the women's 8, unsure if they can move people out of this to make the other boats stronger because i dont follow the rowers that well, but losing to a romanian team by a length who had double the amount of racers over the weekend doesn't look strong