Women’s quad lead way as GB boats progress at Worlds

Defending champions Great Britain eased into the final of the women’s quadruple sculls at the World Championships by winning their heat on the first day of competition in Shanghai.

Hannah Scott and Lola Anderson returned to the boat that took gold in Belgrade two years ago and then went on to win the Olympic title in Paris last year.

They’ve been joined by Becky Wilde and Sarah McKay.

It was a good start to the competition for Great Britain with the men’s quad sculls and men‘s and women’s pair also progressing to the next stage of their respective boat classes.

Illness and injury this season meant the heat was the first time this new GB quartet had sculled together in competition.

However, despite the new combination, it looked like training had gone extremely well as Scott, Anderson, Wilde and McKay edged ahead at the halfway point, along with Romania.

Wilde, who won bronze at the Olympics in the double sculls, has moved into the stroke seat in the quad, while McKay is a newcomer to the GB squad and with the experience of Scott and Anderson in the middle of the boat, they moved away from Romania in the final quarter of the race to win by half a length.

“It was a little bit like business as usual,” said Scott.

“But it’s only the heat and you just want to get through the rounds and that’s what we did.

“We executed the race plan we wanted to and looking ahead we have a very exciting platform to keep developing.“

This was Scott’s first race since the Olympic final almost 14 months ago.

“I feel very free at the moment with just rowing and racing because I’m having such a short season, this being my first race, and in a weird way I’m just seeing what happens and going with it.

“Actually I watched all of Kate O’Connor‘s heptathlon last night at the world athletics and it was very nice to see a fellow Northern Irish woman doing so well on the world stage and just enjoying herself and setting personal bests which is really cool.

“I took that into the heat today, I was just like well there’s no pressure, it’s just about enjoying it.”

At the Olympics in Paris the final was a race for the ages with GB overcoming the Netherlands on the very final stroke to win gold.

Thursday‘s final could see a repeat battle for the world title as the Dutch won the second heat.

The GB men’s quad - Cedol Dafydd, Callum Dixon, Matthew Haywood and Rory Harris - have had a superb season becoming European champions and winning the World Cup in Lucerne and they continued that form, dominating the second half of their heat to take their place in Tuesday’s semi-finals.

Ireland’s Ronan Byrne, Brian Colsh, Adam Murphy and Andrew Sheehan failed to qualify.

It is a new combination in the women‘s pair for Great Britain and Lizzie Witt and Jade Lindo acquitted themselves well, coming third in their heat behind Serbia and Chile but fast enough to claim one of the six fastest-loser places in the semi-finals.

Lindo was introduced to rowing through the Discover Your Gold talent ID programme and soon joined the GB Start pathway at Twickenham Boat Club. Witt was inspired to take up the sport when she went to see the 2012 Olympics at Eton Dorney. This is her first season of full-time rowing.

Ireland’s Emily Hegarty and Aoife Casey failed to progress.

In the men’s pair, James Vogel and Harry Geffen stormed off the start and were leading with 250m to go.

The Leander club duo were then caught by the experienced Spanish pair of Jaime Canalejo and Javier Garcia, along with Sweden.

Third place meant an anxious wait but they too progressed into Tuesday’s semi-finals as one of the quickest non-automatic qualifiers.

The County Fermanagh pair of Ross Corrigan and Nathan Timoney, representing Ireland, made it through as an automatic qualifier after finishing second behind Romania in their heat.

This was their first race since the Olympic final in Paris where they finished sixth but they are the defending bronze medallists from the World Championships two years ago.