Great Britain rules medals podium at Belgrade World Rowing Cup

The British medals spree earned them top spot on the World Rowing Cup overall points standing for 2012. Gaining 79 points gave Great Britain an early season lead of a huge 32 points with Germany coming in at second on 47 points.

Medals for Great Britain included four gold medals coming in the women’s double sculls (Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins), women’s pair (Heather Stanning and Helen Glover), men’s four (Tom James, Alex Gregory, Pete Reed and Andrew Triggs Hodge) and lightweight men’s double sculls (Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase). Three of these crews came to Belgrade as World Champions with the fourth, Stanning and Glover, moving up one spot from silver in 2011.

Great Britain also scored six silver medals and two bronze medals. This sent out a clear message that they are the country to beat coming into the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Amongst the gold medal British crews, three of the boats remained the same as their 2011 line-ups with only the men’s four changing to bring in two new members; Pete Reed and Andrew Triggs Hodge. The men’s four has been named as the flagship boat for the British men’s squad and as Reed and Hodge are the top two in the squad, coach Juergen Grobler sees this as a strengthening measure in their push for Olympic gold later this year.

Coming in second on the medals table, Germany scored three golds – men’s pair, double sculls and eight. The men’s eight win means that Germany remains unbeaten in this event since 2009. But the gold did not come easy. Great Britain pushed Germany hard for the first half of the race with stroke rates remaining high through to the middle of the race. Great Britain ended up in second.

The German men’s pair of Felix Drahotta and Anton Braun did an almighty closing sprint to beat favourites, Greece. The men’s double of Eric Knittel and Stephan Krueger finished at the head of a closely-packed final with a photo finish needed to decide the lesser medals.
The Netherlands finished with 33 points overall. Their main success came in the eights, winning the women’s eight and coming third in the men’s eight. Technical director for Dutch Rowing, Rene Mijnders said he was very satisfied with the results. Dutch rowing will now focus on qualifying more boats for the London Olympic Games. They are sending four crews to the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta, starting 20 May 2012, with the hope of qualifying in the lightweight men’s four, lightweight women’s double sculls, women’s pair and women’s double sculls.

Other highlights included Azerbaijan winning their first international medal in women’s rowing. Natalya Mustafayeva finished third in the women’s single sculls. Cuba’s Angel Fournier Rodriguez broke into the exclusive men’s single sculls club by finishing third and while China’s Xiuyun Zhang got back onto the top of the women’s single sculls medals podium for the first time in 12 years. 

Belgrade's Lake Sava course also doubled up to host the  Final Paralympic Qualification Regatta. Eight more crews were selected to row at the London Paralympic Games including Canada and South Africa in the AS women’s single sculls, Brazil and Ukraine in the AS men’s single sculls, United States and Brazil in the TA mixed double sculls and Italy and Brazil in the LTA mixed coxed four.

For comprehensive results, please consult our results database here. View the World Cup points table here. Detailed race reports have also been published in the news section of our website.

Photo galleries are available for the  Samsung World Rowing Cup I and the 2012 Final Paralympic Qualification Regatta.

Next up on the World Rowing calendar is the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland from 20-23 May which will be followed by the Samsung World Rowing Cup II from 25-27 May