Rowing: A breeze for Pinsent

THE DRENCHING rain and stiff breeze turned Cologne into a winter wasteland with even winning crews shivering in submission on the rostrum. At the end of the first day of World Rowing Championship finals, Britain tops the medal table with Germany, on three golds and one silver apiece.

The British men's coxless four set the standard, using the tricky cross tailwind to set a Championships record of 6min 48.85sec for 2,000m. Matthew Pinsent, at stroke with his old pairs partners Steve Redgrave and Tim Foster at two and three, said: "We needed a cracking first 1,000 metres in case someone used the tail wind to get a lead that would have been hard to pull back. Either France or Italy are able to start fast. We were very pleased with the first half but it slipped away a little after that."

The bow man James Cracknell, still treated as a novice in spite of being a double world champion, said he was worried with 750 metres to go but when the Italians at last began to close on them for the last 250 metres he was relaxed: "Our top speed in training has been really good and I knew we were safe."

The women's eight were pushed out of the final but the double sculls took a magnificent gold. Miriam Batten and Gillian Lindsay took off with all guns blazing to upset the Dutch, who beat them in their only early- season race and won the FISA World Cup. Batten said: "We had a dream start after four weeks of practising just that, and we were used to doing good work in a horrible cross tailwind, so we were very happy at half-way to have nearly four seconds' advantage." Lindsay added: "It doesn't get any easier as the race goes on but it does go by quicker and we were able to hang on when it mattered."

The pair of Dot Blackie and Cath Bishop took the other route: fourth at 1,000 metres, a series of pushes in the second half set up a final sprint against America, who cracked three or four strokes from the line to take silver by half a second.

In the first race the lightweight women's pair of Juliet Machan and Jo Nitsch, replacing Caroline Hobson who went home with a back injury, took a one-length lead at half-way and held it against the United States and Argentina. They had rowed to a silver three years ago in the coxless four and now refound their rhythm in the first half to hold off the challenges.