YORK City Rowing Club’s Tom Ransley and the British men’s eight are confident of springing a surprise in the final at London 2012.
The all-conquering German crew beat Great Britain into second in the rowing heats at Eton Dorney.
However, with the medals not being decided until Wednesday, University of York graduate Ransley is confident his crew can navigate today’s repechage and use the extra race to upset the favourites.
Britain were drawn in the same heat as Germany, reigning Olympic champions Canada and the Netherlands on Saturday.
World champions Germany led from start to finish to clock five minutes 25.52 seconds, with Ransley and his crew-mates just over two seconds behind.
Ransley is not overly concerned about going through the repechage, saying: “I think a real positive from the race was certainly the second 1,000 metres where we managed to keep up with the Germans.
“I think that is something we have improved on from the World Cup season. We have come here to win gold and gold only. At the moment we aren’t quite there as we are still behind the Germans but we have certainly got something to go and build on.”
Meanwhile, Harrogate-born Debbie Flood and Britain’s women’s quadruple scull will also enter the repechage today, but they are a distance away from a potential medal.
Flood, alongside fellow twotime Olympic silver medallist Frances Houghton as well as Beth Rodford and Melanie Wilson, finished their heat last, nearly six seconds off winners Ukraine.
While clearly unhappy with their performance, Flood, who has won both her Olympic silver medals in the quad scull, believes they will show their true winning colours next time out.
“Ultimately we are disappointed because we didn’t perform as well as we know we can,” said Flood. “But we quickly chatted as a crew and there are plenty of things that we have got in our armour that we didn’t quite use out there. We have a really strong rhythm for example that we know we can get, it just didn’t happen out there.”
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