Six more semi-finalists

Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter led a list of six British crews who moved through to tomorrow’s semi-finals of the rowing world cup in Linz, Austria, via repechages and quarter-finals to join the nine British crews already through by dint of wins or placings in this morning’s heats.

The results today – especially in the Olympic boat classes –  combined to make this one of the most successful starts to a world cup for Britain.

Britain’s flagship men’s four were one of the crews to win their heat earlier today. The women’s quadruple scull, featuring Katherine Grainger, is yet to compete with heats starting tomorrow morning alongside those for the men’s and  women’s eights.

The finals of the event are on Sunday.

SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE
=============================== ===============================
RACE REPORTS

QUARTER-FINALS

Alasdair Leighton-Crawford kicked off Britain’s quarter-final efforts in Linz, Austria, this afternoon with a win in the lightweight single scull in 7:24.73 putting him into tomorrow’s semi-finals.

With thunder rattling around the course, the Siemens-backed GB women’s open-weight pair of Natasha Howard and Alison Knowles – so blistering in winning their heat this morning – put in a solid performance to take third place in their quarter final and book a semi-final tomorrow.

The Canadians in this race blasted out to a major lead at the start but were later caught by the  USA and, by the finish, Great Britain also had  an overlap.

Meanwhile Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter followed up their morning win in the heats with a similarly impressive victory in the quarter-finals of the lightweight men’s double  scull.

The duo wound their way up through the field to take the lead at the two-thirds mark and went on to win in 6:35.08 ahead of Hungary and  the Czech Republic in second and third respectively.

Helen Casey and Hester Goodsell, in the equivalent women’s event, were second for the first half of their quarter-final, dropped back to fourth but then regained their second place towards the end with Poland winning and Denmark third. Their compatriots Mathilde Pauls and Jane Hall were fourth in the same race.

REPECHAGES

The men’s quadruple scull of Ian Lawson, Sam Townsend, Alex Gregory and Simon Fieldhouse rounded-up a successful day for GB by winning their repechage in a time of 6:00.08 in one of the closest finishes of the early evening. Gregory and Townsend are both graduates of the ARA’s World Class Start programme, sponsored by Siemens.

Earlier Andrea Dennis made good use of this  afternoon’s repechages – or "second chance" races – in Linz, Austria, by taking second place in a time of 8:08.63 to move through to tomorrow’s semi-finals.

She tracked the eventual Italian winner,  Erika Bello, down the course and held off a challenge the other Italian who took third place.

Tom Solesbury, in the open men’s single  scull, was not so fortunate.  He came third in his repechage, with only one qualifying for the semi-finals.

In a sudden and heavy downpour Britain’s second men’s four were quick off the mark and were leading from a tight pack at the 500m mark. They couldn’t sustain their position, though, slipping back to fourth at the line with only two going through to semi-finals.
 

SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE
=============================== ===============================
RESULTS

QUARTER-FINALS

OPEN

WOMEN

Quarter-final 4
1.  Megan Cooke/Anna Mickelson (USA 1) 7:12.67
2.  Darcy Marquardt/Jane Rumball (Canada)  7:14.09
3.  Natasha Howard/Alison Knowles (GREAT BRITAIN) 7:17.05
4.  Marit van Eupen/Luara Posthuma (Netherlands 1)  7:22.63
5.  Hanna Nakhayeva/Natallia Helakh (Belarus 1) 7:25.19
6.  Alena Zakharava/Volha Zhylskaya (Belarus 2)  7:36.84

LIGHTWEIGHT

WOMEN

Double scull

Quarter-final 2
1.  Magdalena Kemnitz/Ilona Mokronowska (Poland 1)  7:17.43
2.  Helen Casey/Hester Goodsell (GREAT BRITAIN)  7:18.46
3.  Sine Christiansen/Jespen Kirsten (Denmark 2) 7:18.81
4.  Jane Hall/Mathilde Pauls (GREAT BRITAIN 2) 7:22.32
5.  Alexandra White/Kirsten McCann (South Africa 2) 7:23.76
6.  Zsofia Novak/Zsuzsa Hajdu (Hungary) 7:26.19

MEN

Single scull

Quarter-final 2
1.  Alasdair Leighton-Crawford (GREAT BRITAIN) 7:24.73
2.  Valeri Porsvirnin (Estonia) 7:26.01
3.  Kamel Ait Daoud (Algeria) 7:30.96
4.  Richard Coakley (Ireland)  7:31.59
5.  Mohamed Mhenni (Tunisia)  8:08.11

Double scull

Quarter-final 4
1.  Zac Purchase/Mark Hunter (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:35.08
2.  Zsolt Hirling/Tamas Varga (Hungary 1) 6:37.22
3.  Ondrej & Jan Vetesnik (Czech Republic) 6:38.25
4.  Dong Tianfeng/Guolin Zhang (China)  6:41.82
5.  Tamas Varga/Peter Galambos (Hungary 2) 6:50.37
6.  Mohamed Garidi/Dries Chaouki (Algeria)  6:54.23

REPECHAGES

OPEN

MEN

Four

1.  Czech Republic 6:02.12
2.  Germany 2 6:04.74
3.  Italy 2 6:07.08
4.  James Orme/Marcus Bateman/Kieran West/Tom
     Parker (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:07.90
5.  Serbia 6:18.19

Single scull

Repechage 2
1.  Yoennis Hernandez Arruez (Cuba) 7:10.37
2.  Ralph Kreibich (Austria)  7:14.15
3.  Tom Solesbury (GREAT BRITAIN)  7:23.46

Quadruple scull

Repechage 1
1.  Simon Fieldhouse/Sam Townsend/Alexander
Gregory/Ian Lawson (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:00.08
2.  Belarus 6:00.57
3.  Hungary 6:00.85
4.  Canada 6:01.26
5.  Italy 2 6:03.50
6.  Austria 6:10.84

LIGHTWEIGHT

WOMEN

Single scull

Repechage 1
1.  Erika Bello (Italy 1)  8:07.05
2.  Andrea Dennis (GREAT BRITAIN) 8:08.63
3.  Carola Tambolini (Italy 2)  8:11.49
4.  Anne Touminet (France) 8:19.01
5.  Lourdes Guillen Cruz (Spain)  8:22.08
6.  Neylan Oeztuerk (Turkey)  8:22.34

ADD RESULT FROM MORNING’S HEATS

The following result was missing from this morning’s
bulletin.

MEN

OPEN

Single Scull

Heat 7
1.  Marcel Hacker (Germany 1) 7:22.32
2.  Jean-Pierre Peltier (France)  7:27.16
3.  Tom Solesbury (GREAT BRITAIN)  7:28.34
4.  Janier Concepcion (Cuba 2)  7:38.28

SCROLL DOWN FOR MORE
=============================== ===============================
GB CREWS FOR FIRST WORLD CUP OF 2007
LINZ, AUSTRIA, 1-3 JUNE
(listed bow to stroke with club/home town/date of birth
in brackets after name)

OPEN

WOMEN

WOMEN

Pair

Alison Knowles (Thames RC/Bournemouth/27.3.82)/
Natasha Howard (Tideway Scullers/West Runton/3.9.80)

Eight

Baz Moffat (Thames RC/Bradford/8.4.78)/Jess Eddie (Uni of
London/Durham/7.10.84)/Georgina Menheneott (Mortlake, Anglian & Alpha
RC/North Bradley, Wilts /18.12.78)
Louise Reeve (Leander/…./16.05.84)/Beth Rodford (Thames
RC/Burton-on-Trent/
28.12.82)/Carla Ashford (Thames RC/Northallerton/13.3.79)/
Katie Greves (Uni of London/Oxford/2.9.82)/Natasha Page
(Reading Uni/Hartpury/30.4.85)/Caroline O’Connor (Oxford Brookes/
Ealing/25.4.83)

Quadruple scull

Debbie Flood (Leander Club/Leeds/27.2.80)/Annie Vernon
(Thames RC/Wadebridge/1.9.82)/Fran Houghton
(Uni of London/Oxford/19.9.80)/Katherine Grainger
(St Andrew BC/Aberdeen/12.11.75)

MEN

Pair
Colin Smith (Leander/Henley on Thames/3.9.83)/Matt Langridge
(Leander/Northwich/20.5.83)

Four – two boats

Steve Williams (Leander Club/Cheltenham/15.4.76)/Peter
Reed (Leander Club/Nailsworth, Glos/27.7.81)/Alex
Partridge (Leander Club/Alton, Hants/25.1.81)/Andy
Triggs Hodge (Molesey BC/Hebden, N.Yorks/3.8.79)

Marcus Bateman (Leander/Torquay/16.9.82)/Tom Parker
(OUBC/Winchester/24.10.82)/Kieran West (CUBC/West Byfleet/
18.9.77)/James Orme (Leander/Colchester/1.4.84)

Eight

Jonno Devlin (Oxford Brookes/Putney/17.3.76)/Tom Stallard
(Leander/Welwyn, Herts/11.9.78)/Tom Lucy (Oxford Brookes/
Monmouth/1.5.88)/Hugo Lee (Oxford Brookes/Jedburgh/5.3.84)/
Josh West (Leander/Santa Fe/25.3.77)/Richard Egington
(Leander/Knutsford/26.2.79)/Robin Bourne-Taylor (Army
RC/Oxford/22.7.81)/
Alastair Heathcote (Army RC/London/18.08.77)/Acer Nethercott
(OUBC/Harlow/28.11.77)

Single Scull

Alan Campbell (Tideway Scullers/Coleraine/9.5.83)

Double Scull

Matt Wells (Leander Club/Hexham, Northumberland/19.4.79)/
Stephen Rowbotham (Leander Club/Winscombe, Somerset/11.11.81)

Quadruple scull

Simon Fieldhouse (Molesey/Thames Ditton/4.9.76)/Sam Townsend
(Reading Uni/Reading/26.11.85)/Alex Gregory (Reading Uni/
Wormington/11.3.84)/Ian Lawson (Leander/Oltey, W.Yorks/4.3.77)

LIGHTWEIGHT

WOMEN

Single scull (two boats)

Andrea Dennis (Wallingford RC/…../03.01.82)

Sophie Hosking (Durham Uni/Wimbledon/25.01.86)

Double scull (two boats)

Helen Casey (Wallingford RC/Oxford/6.2.74)/
Hester Goodsell (Rob Roy/Cambridge/27.6.84)

Jane Hall (Leander/Caversham/20.10.73)/
Mathilde Pauls (Imperial College BC/…../26.09.83)

MEN

Pair

Matt Beechey (Leander/Worcester/3.4.77)/Daniel
Harte (London/Edinburgh/12.12.75)

Four

Richard Chambers (Oxford Brookes/Coleraine/10.6.85)/
James Lindsay-Fynn (London/Trim/29.9.75)/Paul Mattick
(Wallingford/Oxford/25.4.78)/James Clarke (London RC/
London/13.12.84)

Single scull

Alasdair Leighton-Crawford (Tideway
Scullers/Richmond-upon-Thames/09.12.81)

Double scull

Mark Hunter (Leander Club/Romford, Essex/1.7.78)/
Zac Purchase (Marlow RC/Tewkesbury, Glos/2.5.86)