Campbell leads a British charge

Led by the sculler Alan Campbell, six Great Britain boats won their heats of the World Cup on the Rotsee yesterday and, while times do not always tell the whole story, it looked significant that no less than four of them set the fastest time of the day in their event.

Campbell's victory came in a clinical manner, heading Sjoerd Hamburger of the Netherlands through every mark. The 23-year-old from Northern Ireland chose to miss last week's Henley Regatta to concentrate on his performance here and crossed the line with plenty in reserve.

The result was especially pleasing for Campbell because his specially strengthened blades had been broken in transit from Heathrow, so he had to use much softer sculls than usual. Making a virtue of necessity, Campbell delighted in the new rhythm they imposed, saying: "I really wanted to work hard on my mid-course pace because I know I'll need that in the semi and final."

Campbell's time was more than 2sec faster than his main opposition, Mahe Drysdale, New Zealand's world champion, who also comfortably won his heat.

The British four dominated their heat, easing off to win from France by 2sec. The world champions had missed their showpiece race-off with Holland at Henley when their strokeman Andrew Hodge went down with a stomach bug but here Hodge was back and commanding.

The coach Jürgen Gröbler explained: "I told them to go out and win and they did a really good job. After Henley, they needed a good race." Gröbler was also delighted with the outstanding form of his pair, Tom James and Colin Smith, who produced the day's surprise by winning their heat from Germany and posting a time 2sec quicker than New Zealand's world champions.

Britain's world-beating women's quad looked supreme, sculling in ahead of the United States, again in the day's best time.

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