ROWING Following Minerva Bath Rowing Club's success at Women's Henley, two of the winning boats decided to put together a composite quad for Royal Henley.

The boat comprised of Minerva's Helen Glover. who won the senior singles at Henley, Anna Davidson and Lucy Ryvar, the senior doubles winners, and Erica Bodman, a rower from Cambridge's Rob Roy Rowing Club who has recently moved to train at Minerva.

With hundreds of crews entering the event, qualifiers for each race were held on the Friday before Royal Henley. For the only Women's Quad event, The Princess Grace Challenge Cup, five international crews pre-qualified, leaving three positions to be filled for the opportunity to challenge international crews at Royal Henley.

With 10 crews competing for these spaces in a time trial, the quad knew they would have a fight on their hands, particularly as they only formed five days beforehand and were up against club crews who had spent the whole 2009 season together. Despite this, the powerful Minerva Bath/Rob Roy quad triumphantly qualified, representing a massive achievement in itself.

They then went back to Bath for six days of technical preparation on the River Avon ahead of their first race against China's national squad. Other contenders included two New Zealand crews and the Great Britain crew.

In the heat on Friday, Minerva fought for the entire 2.2km of the course but China's accurate technical ability took them ahead for the win. They were knocked out in the next round by New Zealand, who were in turn defeated by GB in the finals.

Ryvar said: "Obviously it's never easy losing, however reflecting upon the level of competition throughout, from the time trial to the event itself, our main achievement was qualifying – somewhere none of us thought we'd be this time last year.

"The experience was one never to be forgotten and has inspired all the girls to aim even higher for next year.

"The weekend off was then spent in good spirit, relaxing, watching the racing on the banks of the River Thames in the sunshine."

Ryvar, Davidson, Glover and Bodman, who train at the University of Bath and Minerva, are all on the Amateur Rowing Association's World Class Start Scheme, a talent identification and development programme sponsored by Siemens and funded by UK Sport.

For more information on the World Class Start Programme, email GB Rowing performance development coach Paul Stannard at paul. stannard@gbrowing.org.uk.

Adam Freeman-Pask will be looking to continue his medal-winning exploits when the World Cup campaign concludes in Lucerne, Switzerland this weekend.

The University of Bath graduate has been on the podium in the previous two events and will be confident of repeating the trick in the men's single scull.

Former Monkton Combe pupil Alex Partridge is also looking for a third medal as part of the men's four, which has won gold and bronze so far.

And former University of Bath student Marcus Bateman will be hoping to go at least one better than his last outing with the new-look men's quadruple scull crew after they finished fourth in Germany.