Top GB Rowing Team Paralympic contenders do battle for world cup places

Britain’s top Paralympic rowing contenders will try to put this Sunday’s 500 days to go to London 2012 milestone out of their heads as they battle over the weekend with each other for world cup places.

Trials for the GB Rowing Team adaptive squad are taking place at the national training centre and the competition will be fierce this Saturday, Sunday and Monday with rowers hoping to impress and win a place at the Munich World Cup in May (27-29).

“We hope to come out of the weekend with a good idea of who will be in the Munich team”, said Head Coach Tom Dyson.

Tom Aggar, reigning Paralympic single scull champion will test himself against the clock to see if he can reach peak performance after a hard winter of training.

Meanwhile, particular tension will surround the mixed adaptive coxed four. Nine rowers are vying for just four seats in this boat which is one of Britain’s other Games’ medal hopes.

“Everyone has been thinking about the Games and the 500 days to go for quite a while but I’m staying focussed on my main aims for this year which are the world cup and the  world championship”, said 2010 world silver medallist James Roe, probably echoing the feeling across the squad.

Roe’s opponents for seats include, amongst others, 2009 world champions, Naomi Riches and Dave Smith – the latter coming back to the sport after serious neck surgery – as well as Ryan Chamberlain who won silver with Roe in 2010.

Londoner Chamberlain has also been in hospital since winning silver in New Zealand and goes into the weekend’s trials with mainly  land-based training behind him in the last five months.

That has not dampened his enthusiasm to compete in his home city in 2012. He said:  “It’s not long away, so it’s a really exciting time for me especially as I am fairly new to the sport and I am hoping to compete for a place at the Games”.

RACING TIMETABLE
(NB – can be subject to change due to weather)

Trials racing for the adaptive crews will take place
over Saturday, Sunday and Monday 16, 17 and 18 April.

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DATA ON ROWERS TO WATCH

Rower name followed by (club/home town/date of birth)

AS Men’s Single scull

Tom Aggar (Royal Docks RC/London/24.05.84)

Coach: Tom Dyson

LTA Mixed Coxed four – world championship silver four 2011 (plus cox)

Kelsie Gibson (Maidstone Invicta RC)
James Roe (Reading Uni BC/Stratford-upon-Avon/28.03.88)/
Ryan Chamberlain (King’s College London BC/Wandsworth, London/03.04.86)
Kate Jones (Aberdeen BC/Eskdale Green, Cumbria/28.02.86)
Rhiannon Jones (cox) (Reading Uni BC/Hereford/16.09.87)

Additional rowers to watch in contention – 2009 world champions:

Naomi Riches (Leander/Harrow/15.6.83)
Dave Smith (Reading Uni/Dunfermline/21.4.78)

Coach:  Mary McLachlan

PICTURES OF THE GB ROWING TEAM SQUAD IN ACTION AND
AS HEAD AND SHOULDERS ARE AVAILABLE BY E-MAIL:  [email protected]

*SIEMENS is the high performance partner of the GB Rowing Team
(as such they sponsor all the Olympic and Paralympic Class
boats in the senior squad and add value to the GB Rowing
Teams’ Start and High Performance Programme in Clubs Schemes)

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KEY DATES FOR 2011

This important season for the nation’s top rowers
culminates in the  World Championships and
Olympic and Paralympic qualifying regatta:

BLED, SLOVENIA, FROM AUGUST 28 – SEPTEMBER 4, 2011

Britain will seek to qualify boats into as many Olympic
and Paralympic classes as possible here rather than
through the last-chance final qualifying regatta in Lucerne
from May 20-23, 2012.

Meanwhile, here are some additional dates of note for the
GB squad for the remainder of 2011:

KEY DATES FOR YOUR 2011 DIARY

APRIL

16-17
GB Rowing Team Senior Trials, Dorney Lake, Eton

(Time trials and side-by-side racing to help coaches decide
who will be in which boats for the first world cup of the 2011 season)

16-18
GB Rowing Team Trials (adaptive squad)
National Training Centre, Caversham

MAY

11
Announcement of first world cup squad – Caversham

27-29
Rowing World Cup 1, Munich Germany

JUNE

17-19
Rowing World Cup II, Hamburg, Germany

Henley Women’s Regatta

29- July 3
Henley Royal Regatta

JULY

8-10
Rowing World Cup III, Lucerne, Switzlerand

19
Announcement of the World Championships Team

21-24
World Rowing U23 Championships, Amsterdam, Netherlands

29-31
Coupe de la Jeunesse, Linz, Austria

AUGUST

4-7
World Rowing Junior Championships, Dorney Lake, Eton
(this is also the Olympic & Paralympic test event)

28 – 4 September

WORLD ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS, Bled, Slovenia

SEPTEMBER

16-18
European Rowing Championships, Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

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CONTACT DETAILS
For media enquiries about The GB Rowing Teams please contact:

Caroline Searle or Miranda Edwards on:

T:  (01225) 443998
M:  (07831) 755351

e:  [email protected]

GB Rowing Team website www.gbrowingteam.org.uk – full biogs available
here.