November 1- GB women's quadruple scull sneaked into Friday's final by just a tenth of a second as their first race of the World Rowing Championships in New Zealand went right down to the wire.


Debbie Flood, Beth Rodford, Fran Houghton and Annie Vernon took advantage of calmer weather conditions at Lake Karapiro to earn a well-deserved victory over Germany by the narrowest of margins.

The British squad has only been together for just over a month after Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins decided to pull out and concentrate on the double.

Said Vernon afterwards: "I think the crew was finalised about six weeks ago so it has been a very intense preparation, but that keeps it interesting.

"It's been great, I've really enjoyed it."

Grainger and Watkins also cruised into next weekend's final after blowing away their competition in the double.

Four-time world champion Grainger said afterwards: "That's the sort of race you dream of."

Britain's Olympic champions Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase (pictured) put in a dominant performance to reach the semi-finals of the lightweight double sculls.

The duo were quickly away and coasted to victory ahead of France and European champions Germany.

Purchase said: "It's nice to produce a really good, strong performance in the opening race.

"We had the European champions next to us and I think we showed them how much good training we've done."

Alex Partridge, Ric Egington, Alex Gregory and Matt Langridge also made it through to Friday's final in the men's four.

Helen Glover and Helen Stanning reached the final of the pair after finishing second in their heat while their male counterparts Andy Hodge and Pete Reed, the lightweight men's four and the double scull of Matthew Wells and Marcus Bateman all made the semi-finals.

In the men's single sculls Alan Campbell of Britain, Czech Ondrej Synek, local hero Mahe Drysdale and Olympic champion Olaf Tufte all won their heats.

Katie Solesbury and Peter Chambers made it through to the semi-finals of the women's and men's single sculls respectively.

Tom Aggar set a world-best time in the Paralympic men's single sculls while the mixed coxed four also won their heat.


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