A TOTAL of 30 Leander athletes have been announced as part of the new-look GB team that will contest the first World Cup regatta of the season in Sydney next month.

But alongside returning Olympic gold medallists such as Pete Reed and Alex Gregory the majority are newcomers to the senior international circuit, having been awarded their first senior vests to take part in Australia.

Polly Swann and Katie Greves will contest the women’s pairs event, racing in different crews, while Olympians Frances Houghton and Vicky Thornley will race in the double sculls event with Vicky Meyer-Laker.

All five Leander athletes will join forces when they double up in the composite women’s eight, the crew which Thornley stroked in last August’s Olympic final.

Tina Stiller, Monica Relph and Rachel Gamble-Flint have been selected for the women’s quad scull, in which they are joined by Olivia Carnegie-Brown of Oxford Brookes University. Last year’s Henley winners Al Sinclair and John Collins have been selected in different crews in Sydney. Collins retains his place in the double scull, the event they won last summer, while Sinclair has switched to sweep and takes his place in the new-look men’s four. But the big guns are to be found in the men’s eight, which includes three Olympic gold medallists from the men’s four – Reed, Gregory and Molesey’s Andy Triggs Hodge — as well as Tom Ransley and cox Phelan Hill from the 2012 Olympic eight.

Meanwhile Dan Ritchie, twice a silver medallist as stroke of the crew at world championships, is back in the crew after injury kept him out last season.

The lightweight men’s squad features five more Leander athletes, with Olympic silver medallist Richard Chambers switching to sculling in the new lightweight double, while his former partner Chris Bartley retains his seat in the four with Chris Boddy and Jono Clegg.

The GB team leave for Australia on Monday to begin a two-week training camp before the World Cup Regatta which will take place on March 22 to 24 at Penrith Lakes, venue for the Sydney 2000 Olympic rowing events.

Published 28/02/13