When Jen Goldsack was not selected for the women’s lightweight double sculls at Great Britain’s final trials in Belgium in April, choosing a different boat for the season’s leading international competitions was not an option. Thanks to her American-born mother, though, picking another country was.

After a startling performance in the United States trials in New Jersey this month, a feeling that the 25-year-old’s switch would return to haunt British rowing began to take root. That mushroomed on Sunday at the World Championships in Munich, when Goldsack decisively won her lightweight single sculls heat, beating Andrea Dennis, her British rival, and Marit van Eupen, the defending champion from the Netherlands.

Watched by her parents, Pamela and David, the Surrey-born Oxford University graduate will race again for her adopted country on Thursday, aiming to reach Saturday’s final and edge closer to realising in Beijing next year an Olympic ambition that seemed dead in the water four months ago.

This heightened state of intent will alarm Goldsack’s rivals even more than her recent good form, for this is the athlete who shot from novice to international sculler in two years and rowed for Britain in the 2005 World Championships in Japan with a broken shoulder. She formed a lightweight pair with Helen Casey that finished seventh, which astounded the Britain medical staff.

Complete reconstructive surgery followed and during a year out of the water she lost her National Lottery funding and a place in Britain’s boat for the double sculls – the only discipline in the Olympic programme for lightweight women.

The run-up to trying to regain that seat was, by contrast, drama-free. Goldsack had a strong winter season and equalled the world record on the ergometer in March. “At trials you race as individuals and the selectors choose what boat you get a place in,” she said. “I failed to get the performance I needed and was confused about what the hell had happened.”

A sports psychologist had an interesting theory. “I’m not afraid to say that I had issues to address,” Goldsack said. “I had a lot of baggage from all the time spent in rehab. The psychologist wondered if I hadn’t put everything on the line in Belgium because I didn’t want to get selected for GB.”

True or not, the outcome was clear. “I accept what the selectors did and have no complaints,” she said. “But I knew through my dual citizenship that the door to the Worlds and Olympics was not closed.”

Goldsack – who is now coached by Ian South, from the Leander Club, in Henley – is flourishing. She hopes that the American lightweight double qualify their boat for the Beijing Games in Munich. Then prospective crews will pair up and race next spring, with the fastest clinching the ticket to China.

“Because of my great results in New Jersey I’m in a privileged position,” Goldsack, who will soon relocate to America, said. “People are keen to row with me, so the future looks exciting.”

Drinkers at the family’s local pub, in Walton-on-the-Hill in Surrey, agree. The Bell, known locally as The Rat, has raised thousands of pounds to help to fund Goldsack’s training. Nobody seems to mind about the cross-Atlantic detour.

British women first to book Beijing place

The British women’s quad scull qualified directly for Sunday’s final with a first-place finish yesterday at the World Championships in Munich (Mike Rosewell writes). It was the reigning world champions’ first race in their reshuffled order with Katherine Grainger, the double Olympic medal-winner, in the bow seat and made them the first British crew to qualify for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Annie Vernon, the stroke, said: “It has been a sharp learning curve for me but I feel much more in the action.” Five other British crews, including the Olympic-class lightweight men’s double and coxless four, progressed directly with first places and two other Olympic boats, the men’s eight and women’s lightweight double, just missed semi-final places. Jürgen Grobler, the chief coach, has now seen all but two of his 24-boat contingent in action. “It looks quite solid across the team,” he said.

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