K2010 media team member Rob Bristow will be keeping us up to date with news from the European racing season during the countdown to the 2010 World Rowing Championships at Lake Karapiro. Here’s Bristow on Bled.

The opening World Cup of the season at Bled got the International season underway. As is usual with the first regatta of the year, many national teams were still experimenting with combinations and many did not attend.

One of the big stories of Bled was the return of a past Olympic champion. Just as the return to International competition by Rob Waddell ahead of the Beijing Olympics stirred the imagination of New Zealanders and the international media, so has the return of former Olympic gold medalist Greg Searle to the British team. Most British headlines featured his name. 

A home Olympics in 2012 and the 20th anniversary of his first gold medal was the impetus for Searle to attempt to climb the mountain of International selection again. In 1992, Searle won gold with his brother Jonny in the coxed pair. Four years later, it was a bronze in the four at Atlanta. In Sydney, it was the agonizing disappointment of fourth place in the pair after leading for much of the race. A devastated Searle retired from the sport.

As far as British Chief Coach Jürgen Gröbler was concerned, there was no sentiment involved in Greg Searle's return to the national squad after a decade in retirement. The 38 year old father of two had to prove he was worthy of a seat. Gröbler promised that "no-one is too young and no-one is too old for consideration".

After gruelling winter training and squad trials, Searle achieved the first step in his quest for gold at London 2012 as Gröbler selected him for the British eight.

In Bled, the eight, with Searle in the six seat, impressed the world despite a last minute substitution following an injury to bowman Tom Wilkinson. Peter Reed was brought in to the crew after winning silver in the pair. Too big for the bow seat, Reed filled the seven seat with Nathaniel Reilly-O’Donnell moving to the bow. The new-look eight produced a well-timed run in the third quarter to row through the Dutch and win the gold.

Has Searle proved his worth? Gröbler, never a man for sentiment, still has to find a place in the squad for Olympic champion Tom James. Could the introduction of Reed give an indication of his thinking? Could two Olympic champions in the stern of the boat be in prospect for the next World Cup in Munich? Is the writing on the wall for Wilkinson?