Pinsent to miss GB rowing trials
Matthew Pinsent has been forced to return early from the Great Britain training camp in Italy after contracting tonsilitis and will not be able to compete at next week’s GB National Team Trials in Belgium.
Pinsent and James Cracknell, world champions in 2001 and 2002, had been favourites to win the Trials at Hazewinkel next Tuesday and Wednesday.
Cracknell will now swap disciplines from the pair to a single scull in order to compete at the trials and will race against specialist scullers including world championships finalists Ian Lawson and Matthew Wells.
British performance director David Tanner said: “Matthew is at home and receiving treatment. He will not be able to compete at the trials but the team doctors are confident that he will be well on the way to recovery by the end of next week.
“It’s good that James will still be there and will be competing in a single.”
The trials will determine who will race for Great Britain in the first World Cup of the season in Poznan, Poland, in early May and will also be a good pointer as to the eventual British Olympic Games line-up.
