If all goes to plan, Tom James will be the first man to cross the finish line in the final of the men’s coxless four at the Olympic Games in Beijing in August, yet a month ago the Welshman was not even in the boat. As Great Britain named a strong squad for the World Cup season, which starts in Munich next week, James was the centre of attention yesterday, having displaced Alex Partridge to take the bow seat in the flagship crew.

There is cruel irony in the location of the regatta where Jurgen Grobler, the veteran men’s head coach, hopes his new-look four will launch their bid for Olympic glory. It was in the German city last September that the four of Partridge, Andrew Triggs-Hodge, Peter Reed and Steve Williams tasted defeat for the first time in three years. Twenty-seven wins counted for nothing compared with their fourth place — not even a medal — in the World Championships.

Over the winter, Grobler has been trying to work out what went wrong. The personnel were all doing well individually — Partridge actually had a superb winter — but the combination was not working. Grobler moved various alternatives in and out of the boat before deciding that James’s technique best complemented that of Reed and Hodge, his golden pair, and Williams, who was in the gold medal-winning four at the Athens Olympics.

Partridge could have been in that boat in 2004 but suffered the agony of a punctured lung six weeks before the Olympics. His disappointment this year is less acute; he will still go to Beijing but will compete instead in the eight and he was quick to point out yesterday that he was joining a boat that had won a the bronze medal in Munich last year.

“Of course I’m disappointed not to finish off what I started four years ago in the four but this is a different avenue,” he said. “The eight is a great group of guys with a fantastic dynamic and maybe this will help me to row at my best.

“I’ve had my best year so far but Jurgen has got to make a selection for the whole team. He sees that Tom is the right person in the four and maybe I can bring a lot of winning experience to the eight instead.”

James has had his own disappointment to deal with, too. He lost three Boat Races for Cambridge before getting a first victory last year and rowed in the eight in Athens, coming a disappointing ninth.

The remaining team announcements were as expected. Arguably the best chance of a gold medal in Beijing will come from not the men’s four but the women’s quad of Katherine Grainger, Frances Houghton, Annie Vernon and Debbie Flood, who won in the World Championships last year.

Sarah Winckless, who was a world champion in 2005 and 2006 but missed all of last season with injury, will race in a double with Elise Laverick. They won a bronze together in the same class in the Athens Olympics.

Alan Campbell will aim to improve on his fourth place in the World Championships in the single scull, while the double pairing of Matt Wells and Stephen Rowbotham have high hopes after a winter wracked by injury.

The lightweight crews also have medal potential. The men’s lightweight four won gold in Munich, while Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter took bronze in the double scull.

David Tanner, the Great Britain performance director, said that the target was four medals in Beijing but admitted that with seven medals in Olympic classes at last year’s World Championships, there was scope to do much better. “We should get to eight finals,” he said. “In Athens we only got to four finals but won four medals so maybe we can have the same conversion rate.”

Among a few uncertainties are the identity of the lightweight women’s double, with two boats entered for Munich, and the men’s eight, which has ten men competing for the places.

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