Katherine Grainger gets new partner in Europeans

Olympic champion Katherine Grainger takes the next big step in her return to the sport after a two-year lay-off when she competes today in a new double sculls combination with Vicky Thorley at the European Rowing Championships in Poznan, Poland.

Katherine Grainger. Picture: Jane Barlow

It will be Grainger’s first international championship since her 2014 Olympic triumph with Anna Watkins, and she is one of six Scots in the Great Britain team. Another Scots Olympic champion, Heather Stanning from Lossiemouth, will compete in the women’s pairs with Helen Glover, her partner at London 2012 and at the world championships.

Scotland’s Commonwealth champion, Angus Groom who, like Grainger, hails from Glasgow, will make his debut in the single sculls category while Kirriemuir’s Sam Scrimgeour – already a world medallist in the non-Olympic lightweight pairs category – has made the breakthrough to the highly-competitive Olympic-class lightweight men’s four.

Two Inverness athletes – Alan Sinclair and Imogen Walsh – are also racing. Former world champion Walsh will race in lightweight single sculls, while Sinclair will be in the engine room of a new-look coxless four.

Edinburgh’s Callum McBrierty and Karen Bennett are travelling reserves.