Bewicke-Copley hoping to make country proud at Rowing World Championships

David Bewicke-Copley believes it is the duty of Britain's rowers to make the country proud at this week's World Championships following the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. The Lutterworth rower, who turns 25 today (September 21), started his birthday celebrations a day early by helping the men's eight continue their unbeaten run this season as they won their heat to book a place in Sunday's final.

Ad Bewicke-Copley and his teammates donned black ribbons in honour of the late monarch and he felt the team needed to pay their respects after a historic two weeks for Britain. RowingThomas triumphs in 'long-busting' opening round of World Rowing Championships5 HOURS AGO «I think it was definitely important that we all did that today,» he said.

«We are one of the first teams to represent the country after the events of the last week or so, and obviously there is a close connection between the sport and the family involved. »It was all very important for us to show our respect and it was all genuine respect for her.

«We wanted to go out and try to make everyone proud during a fairly tricky time for the country.» Great Britain finished in 5:31.29, leading home Romania and the USA, as they look to continue their momentum following a dominant gold at last month's European Championships. «I think we are just confident in what we do, we aren't really thinking about the other crews,» Bewick-Copley added.

«We know that all of us have experience of crews changing speeds massively during the course of the season, and we do not know what people have been doing over the last month. »We are never going to come in expecting to have an easy ride against anyone, and we can see already that there are a lot of crews that have gained a lot of