ROWING: Oxon trio in World Cup bid (From Oxford Mail)

ROWING: Oxon trio in World Cup bid

10:50am Saturday 5th May 2012 in Headlines

GREAT Britain’s wom-en’s eight crew for this weekend’s World Cup in Belgrade now contains three Oxford rowers following the late inclusion of Olivia Carnegie-Brown.

Carnegie-Brown, who rows for Oxford Brookes, has been called up to join fellow Oxford rower Katie Greves and Brookes cox Caroline O’Connor in the women’s eight after Lou Reeve and Polly Swann withdrew through injury.

The Oxford trio are part of a 57-strong British team, who will be competing in the first of this Olympic year’s three World Cup outings, which starts today and finishes on Monday.

Oxford’s three-time Olym-pian Frances Houghton, the 2010 world champion, returns to the women’s quad and races with Gloucester’s Beth Rodford, Londoner Mel Wilson and Welsh rower Victoria Thornley.

Olympic champion Andrew Triggs Hodge, who lives in Oxford, has moved into the stroke seat of the men’s four ahead of the new-look crews first test since he and Pete Reed switched back into the boat after three years as a pair.

Triggs Hodge said: “The World Cups are stepping stones, but they are very significant stepping stones.

“There will be a lot of tactics and it will be hard to know what each nation is doing and what their objectives or targets are.

“It is the same game every year, but the prize at the end of this year is the big one, the Olympics.”

Constantine Louloudis has been withdrawn from the team due to a slight injury.

The 20-year-old Oxford University student was to compete at stroke in the men’s eight.

Brothers Peter and Richard Chambers, who have both come through Oxford Broo-kes, feature in the lightweight men’s four at bow and the three-seat respectively.

Peter Chambers has broken into the Olympic-class boat after winning world titles at under 23 and senior level in the non-Olympic class lightweight men’s pair last year with Newcastle’s Kieren Emery.

He said “We rowed together for a couple of weeks last year, and it went quite well there. So hopefully, it will pay off.”

The brothers won gold in that world cup outing in Lucerne.

His older sibling Richard said: “So far we’ve been a crew two and a half weeks and it’s been a good start.

“We’re under no illusions we’ve got a lot of work to do as a unit.”