JAMES CRACKNELL made light of a lack of specific training to help Leander to claim the coxed fours title in the Fullers Fours Head on the 4¼-mile stretch from Mortlake to Putney on Saturday.

Cracknell, who is training to row the Atlantic, came in as a last-minute substitute for the injured Alex Partridge in the Leander crew and linked up with Steve Williams, his Athens gold medal-winning crew-mate, Peter Reed, the world champion, and Richard Egington, a former world championship medal-winner, to claim victory with an eight-second margin over an Oxford crew.

Williams described the row as a “bit rough” and Cracknell said: “They put in the really hard miles of training and I enjoyed the race.”

Leander were also the overall winners of the event, with their top quad scull, which included internationals Mark Hunter, the club captain, Ian Lawson, the Britain single in Athens, and Matthew Langridge and Steve Rowbotham from the 2005 Britain quad.

Although Leander also won the women’s Elite quads with a crew of lightweights, the women of Thames were the day’s stars. Their winning Senior 2 quad were the fastest women’s boat in the event, and another Thames crew dominated the coxless fours.