Rowing: James looks to be on board for Beijing Olympics

Apr 30 2008 by Our Correspondent, South Wales Echo

CARDIFF rower Tom James is on course to land a place in Great Britain’s fastest boat at the Beijing Olympics.

The team for next week’s first World Cup regatta in Munich was due to be announced today with James set to be in the coxless four which is aiming for a third straight gold medal.

James has been rowing in the four over the past few weeks, and looks to have displaced two-time world champion Alex Partridge.

The 24-year-old forced his way into the reckoning with a storming second place with Oxford Blue Colin Smith at last month’s pairs trials regatta in Belgium behind two-time world four champions Peter Reed and Andy Hodge.

Steve Williams – the only survivor from the Athens Olympic champion four - looks set to retain his seat alongside Hodge and Reed. But 2005-07 crewmate Partridge has been rowing in the GB eight at the recent GB camp in the foothills of the Italian Alps and at GB rowing’s Caversham HQ, while Cambridge Blue James has occupied his seat in the four.

Losing his place will be a bitter pill for Partridge, who lost his seat with a punctured lung weeks before the 2004 four won gold in Athens in a boat carrying his name.

Fired up to put that right, he said after landing world gold in Japan in 2005: “It’s only a world title. Olympic gold is the only one that matters.”

But for James – who subbed in for the injured 27-year-old last year when the crew won at last year’s Henley Royal Regatta before taking silver at the Lucerne World Cup event – it will be the chance he has been craving since illness and crew changes wrecked his GB eights chance in Athens.

“I want to be in the four. That’s the top boat with the best chance of Olympic gold, and I want to be in it,” said James after his trials result.

“Second in the trials is a good marker, my best ever result, so now I’m going to do everything I can to try and get in the four.”