Hodge bids to complete World Cup cleansweep (From Craven Herald)

Hodge bids to complete World Cup cleansweep

8:52am Thursday 14th June 2012 in General

With his Olympic selection confirmed at Windsor Castle last week, it is back to work for Hebden’s Andy Hodge.

His focus is on this weekend’s final World Cup meeting of the year in Munich.

Hodge will again be at stroke for the Great Britain men’s four as they bid to pick up their third gold medal of the year after scoring victories in Belgrade and Lucerne.

Although the crew of Hodge, Tom James, Pete Reed and Alex Gregory are determined to put down a marker for next month’s London Olympics, they know the competition will be tough.

Hodge, who along with Reed and James won Olympic gold in Beijing four years ago in a crew completed by Steve Williams, is philosophical about the task ahead.

“We know the job in hand and we’ve got to deliver what we've been training to do for the past four years,” Hodge said.

“The conditions played a big part in what we did in Lucerne (the world best time) but we still had to go out and do it.

“It’s great to know we’ve got that speed and we learned a lot coming out of that regatta but we all had open minds going into it.

“We didn’t know where the Aussies were and if we are in touching distance now then it gives me a lot of confidence for the Olympics.

“Given the right conditions I’m sure we can go faster but at the end of the day its about beating the other boats to the line.”

GB Rowing Team Performance Director David Tanner spoke at Windsor on Wednesday of Britain's Games' ambitions to equal the tally of six medals won in Beijing.

And he will be eyeing Munich as a final staging post for a team which he has described as “certainly the strongest team the GB Rowing Team has ever put on the water thanks to unparalleled investment from the National Lottery over the past four years.”