10:23am Thursday 11th June 2009
Olympic rowing champions Pete Reed and Andy Hodge, from Hebden, are taking comparisons they are the new Sir Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent in their stride.
Following his World Cup victory with Hodge, after they switched following Olympic success in the coxless four, Reed said their new pairing was picking up from ‘where Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent left off’.
With five gold medals in successive Games, in both the fours and the pairs, stretching from 1984, Redgrave is arguably Britain’s greatest Olympian.
He and Pinsent, a four-time Olympic rowing champion, teamed up at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics to win the pairs.
Aware they are already being touted as heirs to the duo, Reed said: “It is where Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent left off. I think it is entirely fair that we are compared to them, and those outstanding victories of his are legendary - but that could be daunting because of the success they had.
“They are legendary and people looked up to them but we are definitely in it as Andy Hodge and Pete Reed on our own.”
This fledgling international pairing have known each other since their days at Oxford University and are getting used to now being just two men in a boat.
Reed, a 27-year-old Royal Navy Lieutenant from Chiswick, West London, feels that their very different personalities had created a powerful match.
“We have known each other for a long time but he is very charismatic, extrovert and outgoing whereas I tend to be more clinical about my rowing. We get on well. It is a really complimentary relationship.”
Despite their success at the first World Cup regatta in Banyoles, Spain, Reed believes there is room for improvement.
“We won the World Cup and I am really excited about the project. It is a very interesting time,” he said. “Technically I think we can row better. We did win pretty comfortably but there is still so much more.”
Reed, who picked up his MBE at Buckingham Palace last week, feels that it is too early to say whether the pair will be capable of rowing to gold in the pairs on home waters at the London Olympics in 2012.
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