Adaptive golden hat-trick and bronze for Freeman Pask

June 20, 2009

Tom Aggar, reigning Paralympic champion, began the medal rush. He eased past the fast-starting Ukrainian in his single scull final to take the lead after 450m and cruised on to win in 5:06.02. Andrew Houghton, making his debut at this level, quietly stuck to his stroke form and length and metre by metre also came up from third to push past the high-rating Ukrainain to take silver.

"I’m really pleased. This is the first big regatta since Beijing and it was good to put a big score on the board", said Aggar who also paid tribute to his team-mate Houghton. "It’s been tough getting back into training since Beijing and it’s been good to have someone there every day as a reminder of how the standard is improving. That’s pushing me to improve as well".

Houghton said: "It was a good race. I saw that the Ukrainian had a bit of pace in yesterday’s lane racing. So I made it my goal today to beat him".

James Roberts and newcomer Samantha Scowen did not have the best of starts in the mixed adaptive double scull final. They allowed Poland to take a flying start before catching and passing them. From the halfway point they never looked like ceding the lead and won in 4:17.67.

"We had been planning to lead all the way" said Roberts. "Once we drew level we had a good race. The partnership is going well and to have to recover from a bad start and still win is a good sign".

Scowen said: "I’m really pleased to have won gold at my first world cup regatta. I put in a few bad strokes at the start but it was just inexperience really".

Next came the mixed adaptive coxed four, who have experienced some crew changes since winning bronze in Beijing last year. Dave Smith, a former international-level bobsleigher from Aviemore, and James Roe have teamed up with the more experienced Vicki Hansford and Naomi Riches in a boat steered by cox Rhiannon Jones.

The combination seems to be working. Today they got a fast start and took the lead early. By the finish they were over four seconds ahead of Germany, their nearest challengers with Ireland coming home third.

Riches said: "Everybody stepped up today and we got the result we’ve been striving for. It was nice to race against some new opposition. This crew is a powerful combination with a lot of potential".

Dave Smith said: "That was the fastest start we’ve done. I’ve only been in the sport a few months and as a bobsleigher, I’m more used to sprinting so there’s been a lot of pain getting this far in rowing already but it’s been worth it".

Roe said: "It’s been really nice to race here and we’ve definitely improved since Varese. It’s all coming together".

Hansford said: "We couldn’t have executed the race better. I’m so excited because this is such a strong crew and we’ve really moved forward".

Jones said: "It is great to win on my international debut. After 200m I was telling the crew that we were half a length up on the Germans and I couldn’t see anyone else".

Adam Freeman Pask has begun to make medal-winning a habit in the international classes. He took a second world cup bronze medal of the year here in the lightweight single scull. A sign of his growing ambition was his disappointment at not winning silver in a race won by Duncan Grant of New Zealand with Ondrej Luzek taking silver.

"I would have liked a silver here", he said afterwards. "But I had to go a little bit over my threshold to stay in contention in the middle of the race and I did not have enough at the end".

It looked for 1800m as though he might just get that silver but Luzek bided his time and rowed through the British single sculler in the final 250m.

Earlier the second GB men’s four boat proved the potential they pack for the future with a solid performance to take second place in the afternoon’s B final of this event. Stroked by James Foad they gradually crept back up on the race-through leaders Croatia. In the dying few hundred metres they just couldn’t find the edge to push past and were second by just over a second in 6:23.77.

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RESULTS
(race involving British crews only. For full
results visit www.worldrowing.com)

FINALS

LIGHTWEIGHT

MEN

Single Scull

1. Duncan Grant (New Zealand) 7:06.35
2. Ondrej Luzek (Czech Republic) 7:08.43
3. Adam Freeman-Pask (GREAT BRITAIN) 7:08.91
4. Daisaku Takeda (Japan) 7:13.28
5. Florian Berg (Austria 1) 7:15.28
6. Joschka Hellmeier (Austria 3) 7:27.27

ADAPTIVE FINALS

MEN

Arms-only single scull

1. Tom Aggar (GREAT BRITAIN) 5:06.02
2. Andrew Houghton (GREAT BRITAIN 2) 5:14.36
3. Andrii Kryvchun (Ukraine) 5:16.55
4. Antony Tinga (New Zealand) 5:32.26
5. Juan Pablo Barcia Alonso 5:49.14
6. Tibor Serenyi (Hungary) 6:06.08

MIXED

Trunk and arms double scull

1. James Roberts/Samantha Scowen (GREAT BRITAIN) 4:17.67
2. Jolanta Pawlak/Piotr Majka (Poland) 4:20.77
3. Igor & Mary Kogan (Israel 1) 4:35.82
4. Catherine Martin/Stephane Tardieu (France) 4:36.24
5. Reuven Magnagev/Olga Sokolov (Israel 2) 4:40.56
6. Vincent Culhane/Karen Cromie (Ireland) 4:44.97

Leg, trunk and arms mixed coxed four

1. Vicki Hansford/James Roe/David Smith/Naomi Riches
Rhiannon Jones (GREAT BRITAIN) 3;33.06
2. Germany 3:37.79
3. Ireland 3:50.43
4. Poland 3:54.85
5. France 3:58.40

B Final

OPEN

MEN

Four

1. Croatia 1 6:22.51
2. Nathaniel Reilly O’Donnell/Peter Marsland/Tom Broadway/
James Foad (GREAT BRITAIN) 6:23.77
3. China 6:24.71
4. Poland 6:27.85
5. Netherlands 6:29.02
6. Croatia 2 6:29.77

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CREW LISTS
WORLD CUP, MUNICH, GERMANY
JUNE 19-21, 2009
(Listed as bow to stroke plus cox)

OPEN

WOMEN

Pair – two boats

GBR 1
Olivia Whitlam (Agecroft/Warrington/16.09.85)/Louisa Reeve (Leander Club/London/16.05.84)

GBR 2
Alice Freeman (Wallingford RC/Oxford/06.09.78)/
Lindsey Maguire (Wallingford/Edinburgh/15.01.82)

Eight

Jo Cook (Leander/Nottingham/22.03.84)/
Lindsey Maguire (Wallingford/Edinburgh/15.01.82)/
Tina Stiller (Leander Club/Yarm/23.06.87)/
Alison Knowles (Thames RC/Bournemouth/27.03.82)/
Olivia Whitlam (Agecroft/Warrington/16.09.85)/
Louisa Reeve (Leander Club/London/16.05.84)/
Natasha Page (Reading Uni BC/Hartpury/30.04.85)/
Jess Eddie (Uni of London BC/Durham/07.10.84)/
Caroline O’Connor (Oxford Brookes Uni BC/Ealing/25.04.83) (cox)

Single scull

Katherine Grainger (St Andrew BC/Aberdeen/12.11.75)

Double scull

Annabel Vernon (Marlow RC/Wadebridge/01.09.82)/Anna
Bebington (Leander Club/Leek, Staffs/13.02.83)

Quadruple scull

Beth Rodford (Gloucester RC/Burton-on-Trent/ 28.12.82)/
Sarah Cowburn (Durham Uni BC/Redditch/01.02.89)/
Rosamund Bradbury (Westminster School BC/Banstead/17.12.88)/
Katie Greves (Leander Club/Oxford/02.09.82)/

MEN

Pair

Peter Reed (Leander Club/Nailsworth, Glos/27.07.81)/Andy Triggs Hodge
(Molesey BC/Hebden, N.Yorks/03.03.79)

Four – two boats

GBR 1
Alex Partridge (Leander Club/Alton, Hants/25.01.81)/Richard
Egington (Leander Club/Knutsford/26.02.79)/Alex Gregory (Reading
Uni BC/Wormington/11.03.84)/Matt Langridge(Leander Club/Northwich/20.05.83)

GBR 2
Nathaniel Reilly-O’Donnell (Uni of London/Durham/13.04.88)
Peter Marsland (Cambridge Uni BC/Hampton, Mx/06.03.85)/
Tom Broadway (Leander Club/Newport Pagnell/21.08.82)/
James Foad (Molesey BC/Southampton/20.03.87)/

Eight

Tom Wilkinson (Leander Club/Reading/04.07.85)/
Dan Ritchie (Reading Uni BC/Herne Bay/06.01.87)/
James Orme (Leander Club/Colchester/01.04.84)/
Tom Burton (Leander Club/Barton-le-Clay, Beds/24.05.80)/
Mohamed Sbihi (Molesey BC/Surbiton/27.03.88)/
Tom Solesbury (Isis BC/Petts Wood, Kent/23.09.80)/
Tom Ransley (Cambridge University BC/ Ashford, Kent/06.09.85)/
James Clarke (London RC/London/31.12.84)/
Phelan Hill (cox) (Leander Club/Bedford/21.07.79)

Single scull

GBR 1
Alan Campbell (Tideway Scullers/Coleraine/09.05.83)

Double scull

Matt Wells (Leander Club/Hexham, Northumberland/19.04.79)/
Stephen Rowbotham (Leander Club/Winscombe, Somerset/11.11.81)

Quadruple Scull

Charles Cousins (Reading Univ BC/Cambridge/13.12.88)/
Marcus Bateman (Leander Club/Torquay/16.09.82)/
Bill Lucas (Reading Univ BC/Kingswear/13.09.87)/
Sam Townsend (Reading Uni BC/Reading/26.11.85)

LIGHTWEIGHT

WOMEN

Double scull – two boats

GBR 1
Hester Goodsell (Reading Uni/Cambridge/27.06.84)/
Sophie Hosking (London RC/Wimbledon/25.01.86)

GBR 2
Andrea Dennis (London RC/Oxford/03.01.82)/
Laura Greenhalgh (London RC/Oxford/02.09.85)

MEN

Single scull

Adam Freeman-Pask (Imperial College BC/Windsor/19.06.85)

Double scull – two boats

GBR 1
Rob Williams (London RC/Maidenhead/21.01.85)/Paul Mattick
(Leander Club/Frome, Somerset/25.04.78)

GBR 2 – U23 boat

Ben Rowe (Tees RC/Middlesbrough, N.Yorks/05.11.88)/
John Preston (Reading Uni BC/Durham/16.04.89)

Four

Bob Hewitt (Tees RC/Scarborough/27.04.87)/
Chris Boddy (Tees RC/Stockton-on-Tees/16.11.87)/
Stephen Feeney (London RC/Coleraine/12.05.85)/
Chris Bartley (Leander Club/Chester/02.02.84)

ADAPTIVE CREWS

Men’s Arms-only Single Scull

Two boats

Tom Aggar (Royal Docks RC/Barnet, London/24.05.1984)

Andy Houghton (Maidenhead RC/Newbury/06.04.1981)

Trunk and Arms Double Scull

James Roberts (City of Swansea RC/Swansea/11.05.1986)/
Samantha Scowen (Dorney BC/Wokingham/29.10.1987)

Legs, Trunk and Arms Coxed Four

Vicki Hansford (University of Surrey BC/Farnborough/31.10.79)/
James Roe (Stratford-upon-Avon BC//Stratford-upon-Avon/
28.03.1988)/Dave Smith (Reading University BC/Aviemore/21.04.78) /Naomi Riches (Marlow RC/Harrow, London 15.06.1983)/Rhiannon Jones
(Reading Uni) (cox)