Scott wins silver for GB at rowing worlds

Great Britain won silver medals in the women's and men's quadruple sculls on the first day of finals at the World Rowing Championships in Shanghai.

The women’s quartet of Becky Wilde, Hannah Scott, Lola Anderson and Sarah McKay could not quite find the sprint finish to overhaul the Netherlands.

In the men’s final a similar scenario played out with the GB foursome of Cedol Dafydd, Callum Dixon, Matthew Haywood and Rory Harris leaving themselves too much to do in the final stages to catch Italy.

"We’re obviously a little disappointed with silver but it’s a solid result. As a crew we’ve only had eight weeks together and to do that in eight weeks is no small feat," Scott told BBC Sport NI after the race.

"We’ll certainly look at tactics and ratings over the winter training which I’m very excited about.

"We didn’t really have the time to do that this year, we just had to go for it but to start the year after the Olympics with a silver medal at the worlds is a solid start to the road to LA."

At the Olympics in Paris last year, Great Britain and the Netherlands battled to the finish line when the gold medal was settled in GB’s favour on the final stroke.

Both countries had different line-ups this year but the world final played out along similar lines but with the result reversed.

Scott and Anderson returned to the GB boat but this was the first regatta they were able to scull alongside Wilde and McKay after a season hit by illness and injury.

As happened in Paris, the Netherlands roared off the blocks and established a length lead by the halfway point.

In a contrast in styles the GB boat, rating almost five strokes per minute less, gradually reeled them back in as the Dutch held on to their lead.

This time, however, there was no final sprint from GB although they were still closing the gap at the finish.

Although they will be disappointed not to win, the long goal is the LA 2028 Olympics and this was a good first step.

In contrast, the GB men’s quad have had a superb season becoming European champions and winning the World Cup in Lucerne, and they were favourites to add the world title but ultimately, the final was very similar to the women’s race.

The Italy boat of Luca Chiumento, Luca Rambaldi, Andrea Panizza and Giacomo Gentili took the race on with a flying start and they had clear water by 500m, ahead of Great Britain.

Employing similar tactics to the GB women, the men began to move back in the second 1000m but Italy had done enough early on and were able to cross the line well ahead of the pack.

Great Britain took silver, their first medal in this boat class since 2022.

"We came in wanting to win and we knew we could," said Dafydd.

"Everything went well and we raced our best and unfortunately our best today just wasn’t quite food enough.

"You have to give credit to Italy, they were better than us today and we raced that race again who knows but we did everything we could today."

Great Britain’s other finalists were the new combination in the women‘s pair.

Rowing in an outside lane, Lizzie Witt and Jade Lindo acquitted themselves well in the regatta overall but were sixth, with Romania taking gold.

Great Britain celebrated heat wins in both the men's and women's eights with the finals scheduled for Saturday.

In the PR3 mixed doubles sculls, Annabel Caddick and Samuel Murray won their heat to move into Friday’s semi-finals.

After Wednesday's postponement the men's double sculls semi-finals finally took place.

Olympic champions Romania, Andrei Cornea and Marian Enache led from the start and held off the Irish boat of Philip Doyle and double Olympic champion Fintan McCarthy who has moved up from lightweight rowing into the heavyweight class for this Olympic cycle.

The final will take place on Friday.