ROWAN McKellar insists she has nothing to lose as the confident rower heads into the women’s pair final at the European Rowing Championship in Glasgow.
The 24-year-old teamed up with Harriet Taylor earlier this year and the duo are moving in the right direction after easing through the repechage on the water at Strathclyde Country Park.
The rower is thoroughly enjoying her new partnership with Taylor as they held off France, Poland, Hungary and Serbia to progress to Saturday’s showpiece.
McKellar knows they have every chance of standing atop the podium and believes the pair are improving every single time they hit the water together.
She said: “We’re really happy with the performance. We had good bits in our first race but there were things we wanted to work on so I think getting out there was a good opportunity to practise those again. It’s put us in a good position.
“I think that’s given us more confidence and it means we have nothing to lose going into the final.
“We’ll go out there and see if we can get on the podium. If we give our best race we’re very capable of it.
“You learn so much every single time you get on the water and it’s exciting to think about how much there is still to learn going forward.”
The British pair will join the Netherlands, France, Romania, Ukraine and Italy in the final this weekend.
McKellar couldn’t be happier on home water and is savouring every moment of her time in Glasgow.
She said: “It’s great to be here. I was only born an hour away so to be here is fantastic.
“It’s been a great even so far. There’s so many volunteers and the atmosphere is really good.”
Elsewhere, in the synchronised swimming duo Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe opened their 2018 European Championship campaign with a top 10 finish.
The pair scored an impressive 80.2820 for their routine in their maiden senior championships at the Duet Tech in Glasgow.
Shortman, 16, and Thorpe, 17, will take plenty of positives as they head into the Duet Free competition on Saturday.
SSE customers can get up to 48 hour advanced ticketing, lounge upgrades, exclusive competitions and VIP experiences at our sponsored venues, The SSE Arena, Wembley and The SSE Hydro. We’re also incredibly proud to support The SSE Women’s FA Cup. ssereward.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here