Rowing: Rimmer increases rhythm - Hugh Matheson reports from Glasgow

FOUR Henley winners, in eights and pairs, combined to win the under-23 world championship coxless fours in the Nations Cup here yesterday.

Dave Gillard, a Cambridge blue who had won the Goblets event for coxless pairs at Henley, was joined by David Cassidy, Matthew Parish and Damian Rimmer - three of the London University eight which won the Grand Challenge Cup.

With less than a week together they contended well with the rough water thrown up by a fierce cross-tail wind and took an early lead. 'Once we got up we just tickled it along without taking any risks,' Cassidy, in the bow seat, said.

The Italian team gained in the third 500 metres of the race, but for the last quarter Parish and Rimmer, the stern pair, were able to increase the stroke-rate and hold their one-length advantage.

Peter Bridge, a winner in the eight last year, finished second in the coxless pair with Nick Clarry. They were caught out by the very fast start of the Italian pair and were three lengths down after 500m, although they regained some of the distance it proved impossible to recover the whole deficit in the rough conditions.

Chris Elmitt, who had been reluctant to race here in preference to training for a place in the lightweight quadruple sculls for the world championships in Montreal in August, conquered the conditions to win a silver medal in the single sculls.

The women's pair of Astrid Heulin and Claire Glackin raced in the roughest weather of the day and coped admirably to win a silver medal behind France.

The men's lightweight coxless four, which finished second last year, finished with bronze despite taking in a lot of water. At one point in the last 500 metres their bow canvas was diving into the waves and not clearing even on the recovery.

The women's lightweight double scull of Jane Hall and Sarah Birch finished third in the first event of the day, and the women's quadruple scull finished third behind France.

NATIONS CUP UNDER-23 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (Strathclyde Park, Glasgow, winners and GB): MEN: Single sculls: 1 Netherlands 7min 9sec; 10 Great Britain (Attewell) 7:31; Coxless fours: 1 Great Britain (Parish, Rimmer, Gillard, Cassidy) 6:15. Quadruple sculls: 1 Italy 6:6. Eights: 1 Germany 5:44.19; 6 Great Britain (Morgan, Forster, Green, Wild, Poulton, Cracknell, Whittaker, Cooper, Cox: Boon) 5:48. Lightweight double sculls: 1 Germany 6:44; 7 Great Britain (Cittoe, Webber) 6:50. Lightweight single sculls: 1 Germany 7:15; 2 Great Britain (Elmitt) 7:20. Lightweight coxless fours: 1 Denmark 6:18; 3 Great Britain (Keys, Belchem, Cox, Brodie) 6:26. Lightweight quadruple sculls: 1 Germany 6:9. Coxed fours: 1 Germany 6:13.12. Double sculls: 1 Spain 6:37. Coxless pairs: 1 Italy 6:45; 2 Great Britain (Bridge, Clarry) 6:52. WOMEN: Lightweight double sculls: 1 Germany 7:29; 3 Great Britain (Hall, Birch) 7:37. Lightweight single sculls: 1 Sweden 8:2; 5 Great Britain (White) 8:12. Pairs: 1 France 7:51; 2 Great Britain (Heulin, Glackin) 7:56. Double sculls: 1 Romania 7:8; 9 Great Britain (Dring, Seaman) 7:49. Single sculls: 1 Germany 8:4. Quadruple sculls: 1 France 6:51; 3 Great Britain (McKenna, Cooper, Knight-Bernard, Clift) 7:7.

Overall team positions: 1 Germany 79pts; 2 Great Britain 35; 3 France 34; 4 Italy 32; 5 Spain 19; 6 Netherlands 18.