World best for Molesey men in Lucerne (From Sutton Guardian)

World best for Molesey men in Lucerne

2:17pm Friday 25th May 2012 in Sport

Molesey Boat Club's Andrew Triggs Hodge and Tom James -with the help of Peter Reed and Alex Gregory - blew apart the world best time for the men’s four in winning their world cup heat in 5:37.86 in Lucerne today.

The quartet moved up through the field to lead at halfway and turned on the power to take the verdict by considerable clearwater and smash the previous mark of 5:41.35 - set by Germany at the 2002 World Championships. They will now race a semi-final tomorrow.

James said the quartet did not set out to take the record: “We set out to win our heat and we didn’t want to hide away from hard work, even in a heat, if it gave us speed.

“The World Best Time is nice but we’re here to beat people and to put in that kind of performance consistently”.

Australia also looked fast in winning the opposing heat.

“We’ve seen the high standard here that we expected and we have had a strong morning but not everything has gone our way. There is plenty to play for in tomorrow’s semis”, said GB rowing team performance director David Tanner.