Five first places in Olympic event heats gave Britain an impressive opening to the World Championships here yesterday. With first-round heats seeded, Britain’s leading crews were expected to progress without too much trouble and they mostly did. Alan Campbell, in the single sculls, produced a sparkling start and then relaxed, the men’s double sculls of Matthew Wells and Steve Rowbotham did much the same, but the flagship men’s coxless four had to work harder after being led by France to beyond halfway and challenged to the line by Ireland.

The men’s coxless four’s hard race was not unexpected. “We knew it was going to be tough,” Peter Reed, the No 2 man, said. “Everyone has moved on in the last six weeks.” The Netherlands and New Zealand, the only crews to have beaten the British four in two years, qualified directly in other heats.

Alan Campbell kept his powder dry in his heat, admitting to “saving the firepower for the coming bigger races”. His stroke rate was below 30 for most of the last 1,000 metres. His sculling squad colleagues, Matt Wells and Steve Rowbotham, also managed their direct passage to the double sculls’ quarter-finals without too much output, shaking off a challenge from the Czech Republic after halfway, which pleased Rowbotham, the stroke man. “There is a lot of quality in the field. Today gave us confidence,” he said.

The two other firsts, for the men’s coxless pairs of Colin Smith and Matt Langridge and the women’s double sculls of Elise Laverick and Anna Bebington, were perhaps slightly less certain after the pair’s poor performance at the Lucerne World Cup and the late start to the season for the women’s double after early-season injury.

The pair won the first World Cup in Linz with a sparkling second-half row. They did the same yesterday. Smith admitted to “a sense of relief after Lucerne” but acknowledged the threat posed by Australia’s world champions and New Zealand, also direct qualifiers yesterday.

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