MEDALS were in short supply at the European Games in Glasgow after late changes affected crew performances, writes John Wiggins.

Injury and illness forced changes to the Great Britain crews and while most reached the A finals at Strathclyde Park, the relatively unfamiliar combinations struggled in the latter part of their races to reach the podium.

The exception was in the women’s eights, where Oxford Blue, Anastasia Chitty, and Headingtonian, Fiona Gammond, came second in a dash for the line.

The men’s eight had prepared changes, with Radlean, Oli Wynne-Griffith, moving to the stroke seat supported by Oxford Brookes’ Matt Tarrant and another Radlean, Tom George.

But other unscheduled changes left the boat just outside the medals in fifth.

Wallingford RC’s Eli Piggott was racing again without her scheduled partner and though showing good pace in the early stages finished sixth.

The former Abingdon School pairing of Matt Rossiter and Oli Cook just missed the A final in the tougher of the semi-finals, but dominated the B final for seventh overall.

Oxford Brookes’s Jamie Copus, (also once of Abingdon School) in the lightweight double just missed out twice.

He was 0.2 seconds off an A final place and only half a second from winning the B final and eighth overall.

Zoe Lee, an Oxford Blue, was a second off the podium in the quad scull.

This weekend it is the turn of the GB juniors and university rowers at their respective World Championships in Racice (Czech Republic) and Shanghai (China).

A third of the university squad are from Oxford, racing in seven of the nine events, while Headington School are represented in the junior team by Lucy Pullinger and coach Ryan Demaine with the four.

There was a scattering of success locally at the Henley Town and Visitors Regatta last weekend.

Many were in singles, including City of Oxford RC’s Sinead Turner-Frick (J15) and in the senior Tier 1 event, Caitlin Armstrong.

The Oxford University lightweights collected trophies, with the Tier 3 event going to Amanda Thomas and Tier 4 to Naomi Holland.

Simon Kirk, Stewart Elliston and Dave Homans of CORC helped the composite coxed four (with Quintin BC) to win the Tier 1 event.

The Tier 2 coxed fours was won by Wolfson College, while Falcon RC’s Susie Smith, Naomi Sharma, Camilla Scarf and Lil Cochrane won the Masters D quad scull.

Abingdon RC raced to victory with Phillip Nelson, James Nygaard, Ollie Fielding, Ed Cowburn, Ed Sanders, Alex Dalgliesh, Alex Gavin, Toby Gamlen and cox, Rhiann Andrew winning in the Tier 2 eights.