Rowing: Batten still has the edge over British colleagues
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Your support makes all the difference.The Olympian Guin Batten led her second Great Britain heavyweight women's sculling ranking in a row on Saturday, at the trial in Boston for the national rowing squad and any hopefuls wishing to join them. Batten was victorious over her fellow international Frances Houghton by three-quarters of a second, while James Cracknell held off Ian Lawson to win the heavyweight men's sculling trial. Meanwhile at the lightweight trials yesterday, Tim Male maintained his top-rank position, while Tracy Langlands pushed Helen Casey into second place.
Batten and Houghton appear to have flourished in training abroad recently, and finished with a comfortable 10-second margin over the rest of the women's squad, headed by Batten's fellow Sydney silver medallist Kath Grainger. Houghton is spending the third year of her Spanish degree course studying in Seville, coincidentally the venue for the 2002 World Rowing Championships, and was sculling her first race in a brand new boat.
Batten, who picked up the overseas training habit when representing Britain several years ago in the women's single scull, decided to head towards Vancouver Island, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Here, for a month, she has been training up to four times a day with the Canadian men's national squad, under the eye of ex-GB women's squad coach Mike Spracklen. "I only got about 20 minutes of coaching in the four weeks I was out there", said Batten, "but it was the training environment which suited me. I'd go out in front of all the Canadian men, sculling, and try not to let them catch me."
The female scullers had agreed to create a clear trial by spreading well out down the course, but the men bunched up, risking several near-collisions. James Cracknell did an excellent job from the front to win the men's trial ahead of more specialist scullers, although he and Matthew Pinsent will be ready to reaffirm their dominance in the coxless pairs by the time final selection comes round.
In their absence, Oxford University's Basil Dixon and Nick O'Grady won the men's heavyweight pairs, while Thames Rowing Club filled the first four places in the women's pairs.
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