A highly impressive performance at the last round of open trials for the British rowing team has demonstrated that Kath Grainger's bid to compete in a fifth Olympic Games is fully back on track.
Set to turn 40 later this year the Glasgow-born rower who learned to row when on the River Dee when growing up in Aberdeenshire but who now represents Edinburgh's St Andrew Boat Club in competition, took second spot in last weekend's trials at Boston in Lincolnshire, only beaten by fellow Olympic champion Helen Glover.
Grainger was the top performer among the 23 Scots who took part but was one of four to finish in the top 11 of the women's openweight single scull with Polly Swann, who has partnered Glover to World Championship success in the coxless pairs finishing eighth while Heather Stanning, who has won that event at both the Olympics and the World Championships with Glover, taking 10th spot and Victoria Meyer-Laker 11th.
The quality of the competition provided the strongest possible evidence that the veteran, who famously won her first Olympic gold medal in London in partnership with Anna Watkins in the double sculls after previously just missing out and claiming silver at Sydney, Athens and Beijing, is capable of going to Rio next year and performing at the level that she and the team management will demand.
Grainger has admitted that she found that she had a very hard decision to make when Watkins announced, a year ago, that she was not going to return to the sport competitively after the pair had taken a post-Olympic break.
Thereafter she has explained how she agonised over what to do ahead of the deadline imposed by GB Rowing, by which those seeking to go to Rio had to return to training.
However, as Scottish Rowing's top official acknowledged yesterday, she has clearly got her focus back during the intervening six months in proving so competitive with such high class rivals.
"It was a very good result for Kath and a very encouraging weekend for Scottish rowing in general," said Amanda Cobb, chief operating officer of Scottish rowing.
"We had some very good results across the disciplines and there was real evidence of progress among some of the younger rowers in our under-23 group that we are working hard to develop."
The next round of trials will now be by invitation in a few weeks time after which the management will work out their combinations for the coming season which will have obvious implications for Olympic selection.
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