ON AN afternoon of rare emotion, a desperately narrow defeat for the title-holders in the women’s quadruple sculls final caused Britain to end the Siemens World Championships in vexation yesterday.

Their disappointment was emphasised by the resigned words of Katherine Grainger, while tearful Sarah Winckless, another member of Britain’s beaten quadruple sculls crew, was so distraught at the defeat that she initially went behind the grandstand as the medal ceremony was being prepared. The 6,000 crowd on the banks of the Lake Dorney course ay Eton had earlier looked on in surprised frustration as the Russians overhauled the British favourites in the last 500 metres.

The crew were only overcome by the emotion of the defeat when they were later interviewed by Sir Steve Redgrave. “He is such an inspirational figure, an ambassador for our sport and a personal friend. He knows how much we wanted that gold,” Winckless said.

Grainger, double Olympic silver medal-winner, said of her crew’s unexpected defeat by 0.51sec: “I cannot imagine it could be any worse than to lose in front of your home crowd, especially when we were leading in the middle of the race.”

Her frustration was evident, particularly as the crew had won all three World Cup races this season. “I think if we had got it all together we would have won that. I will have to go back and look at the tape of the race to see what we need to do,” she said.

Britain, who had trailed early on, led at 1,500 metres but over the last 500 metres the Russians accelerated. The British crew did not know who had won as they crossed the line. “We have never been rowed through like that at the end, so it obviously was not quite the standard we expected,” Grainger said. “There is no disrespect to the other crews in a World Championships final. The level of the other crews has been rising throughout the year. We expected to be in a tough race and that is what it proved to be.”

David Tanner, the international manager, said the ambition was always to retain the two titles won in Japan last year as well as to gain three medals in Olympic classes. He described the British performance as “good across the board, but not great. We have to take a rain check now.”

The most heartening aspect of the men’s coxless fours triumph on Saturday was that their 24th successive victory to retain their title was achieved without performing as they know they can.

Andy Triggs Hodge, the stroke, said that their row had “holes in every part” while Steve Williams, the only remaining member of the 2004 Olympic gold medal-winning crew, described the performance as “not vintage rowing”. He also talked about the extra gear that the four can use.

“We got into a position of being pretty comfortable with 500 metres to go and the momentum was with us. It was just a matter of increasing our speed a little to keep our noses in front,” Williams said.

They had a hiccup about 200 metres from the finish when the blade of Williams got caught between the water and the rigger.

“I managed to keep it under control, otherwise I think I would have been out of the boat at that point. At the very least, I would have lost my front teeth,” Williams said.

Redgrave was impressed with the way the crew showed that they could use different tactics from blasting off at the start and then holding on. This time, they put in a burst in the middle part of the race.

Williams believes that this four is faster than the 2004 Athens Olympics crew, but they know they can still improve their consistency. “If you are racing in front of the field all the time you have to find a ghost who is going to beat you,” Triggs Hodge said.

“The Germans, Dutch and the United States (who challenged the British most closely on Saturday), they are all ghosts. But we know we can gain seconds all round.”

MEDALS TABLE

Germany 11
Great Britain 8
Australia 7
Italy 6
United States 6
New Zealand 6
Canada 6

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