Rowing: Britain's Olympic class race to semi-final clean sweep

All six of Britain's crews succeeded in qualifying through yesterday's World Championships repêchage round, so all 12 Olympic class boats have now reached Friday's semi-finals. Of the non-Olympic boats, three are in finals, one in a semi-final, and the women's lightweight quadruple scullers have a repêchage today.

All six of Britain's crews succeeded in qualifying through yesterday's World Championships repêchage round, so all 12 Olympic class boats have now reached Friday's semi-finals. Of the non-Olympic boats, three are in finals, one in a semi-final, and the women's lightweight quadruple scullers have a repêchage today.

In the last race, the men's eight reached the semi-finals so smoothly that they looked as if they were cruising at a much lower rate than 40 strokes to the minute. This makes two outstanding races for the eight.

The lightweight four obtained the second of two qualifying places in a fast race behind the Irish. The men's quadruple scullers pulled into the second qualifying place after being fourth after 500 metres, and the evidence is that Matt Langridge's move to the stroke seat has turned them into racers.

Alex Beever pulled up from fourth to second in the women's singles, and Pete Gardner qualified easily in the men's singles.