Duo on brink of history

No Northern Ireland athlete has won a summer Olympic title since.

This morning at Eton Dorney Coleraine brothers Richard and Peter Chambers can write their names into the history books.

The duo, alongside their Team GB crewmates Chris Bartley and Rob Williams will take on the best in the world in the final of the men’s lightweight four.

After two dominating performances in the heats and semi-finals the quartet will go into the race as favourites but such is the nature of lightweight rowing where every man and every boat basically weighs the same any one of the six crews could win it.

“There’s such a fine margin between finishing first and sixth in a final like this,” explained younger brother Peter who will be rowing in his first Olympic final.

“But we are pleased with how we’ve rowed so far and we just need to go out there and execute our plan.”

Older brother Richard has been through this before in Beijing when he was a member of the boat that finished fifth.

“I try and draw on my experience from Beijing a little bit and I keep trying to tell the guys don’t be scared because we’ve done all the stuff in training but Rob makes the calls in the boat and sometimes I’ll take control and pull the reigns in a little bit but only if necessary.

“We’re all racers and everyone will be nervous before the race.

“This is the Olympics, it’s once every four years that we get to do this.”

Their biggest challengers for the medals are likely to be defending champions Denmark, the fast finishing South Africans and world champions Australia.

“We have an idea of who are the best crews but you can see how tough it is from the other heat France and China didn’t make it and neither did Germany,” added Richard.

“That’s just the event; we have an idea who the fastest crew is. Denmark definitely have to be watched out for, they have two Olympic champions in the boat and they have pedigree and they know what they’re doing but we’ve beaten every boat in the final at some point over the last three years and we’re in a really good position.

“I don’t think we could have done much more up to this point, we just have to go out and deliver our race, do what we do best and if we do that then we can come away with a gold medal,” he said.

Cheering them on from the shore will be fellow Coleraine rower Alan Campbell, who has his single sculls final tomorrow.

“The only thing that can separate them is the mental attitude because they all train as hard as each other so it will come down to who wants it more on the day,” he said.

“Our guys have very cool heads and I’ll be backing them all the way to do it.

“They looked more in control in the semi-finals of any of the other crews so expect big things.”

And five-times gold medallist Sir Steve Redgrave is also tipping them for gold.

“Our guys were over three seconds than the other semi-final and I thin they are sheer class and they look in total control of what they’re doing and I think they’re going to have a great final.”