Top rowers in action for west London club
Some of the world’s best rowers will compete for a west London club against the best in Britain on the River Thames on Saturday.
Olympic bronze medallist Alan Campbell has put together an all-star crew featuring double world champion Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic, Valent Sinkovic from Croatia and young sculling star Aleksander Aleksandrov of Azerbaijan to compete for Chiswick-based Tideway Scullers School in the Fullers Head of the River Fours.
Their main rivals will be a crew of GB squad members, rowing for Leander Club from Henley-on-Thames. They include Alex Gregory, who won Olympic gold in the coxless four at London 2012, and double world champion Matt Langridge.
The event runs as a time trial, from Chiswick Bridge to Putney, with defending champions Leander starting first and Tideway Scullers close behind them. Starting at 1pm, it is also open to club crews and almost 500 have entered in total.
Among the women’s crews, Leander’s GB squad members take on a group of former Olympians – including Beijing medallists Debbie Flood, Annie Vernon and Elise Laverick – racing as a composite between Leander and Putney’s Thames RC at number 50.
The Fours Head is also the first chance for the 2014 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race squads to race each other. The Oxford men’s team (racing as Isis) and the Cambridge men have entered five crews each, with the top boats racing in coxed fours at numbers 31 and 32 respectively.
The top Oxford crew features Maida Vale’s Constantine Louloudis, who won Olympic bronze in 2012 before taking time away from international racing. Back this year, he won a preliminary GB selection trial by a massive 16 seconds earlier this month.
Squad members preparing for the Oxford and Cambridge Women’s Boat Race – which moves to London in 2015 – are also taking to the Tideway, with Cambridge racing seven crews to Oxford’s three
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