GREAT Britain's women's Eight finished a creditable fourth at last weekend's World Cup Championships in Seville.

The squad featured former Evesham club member, Bev Gough, who was first reserve for the squad selected for last year's Olympics in Sydney, and who is now resident in Putney and Lottery funded.

The 27-year-old's career on the water has really taken off and now trains full time with the national squad.

However, specific training for the World Champion-ships started a couple of weeks prior to the event with lots of technical changes made during preparation.

Britain couldn't have faced a tougher test in the opening event last Friday with Olym-pic champions Romania in the same race.

And, if the competition was hot then so was the weather with temperatures in southern Spain topping 37C as the Germans and Belarussians lined up in the same race.

"We knew the formation of the Germans because a different combination had raced against them at Essen last month so we knew we had to ace really well to be up with them," Gough revealed.

Seated at bow, the former Bowbrook School and Kings School, Worcester pupil, helped the British team into third place after racing hard all the way in an aggressive effort to stay on the tail of the Romanian boat.

"We watched a video of our eight taken during the race to make us aware of the impro-vements needed for Sat-urday's final," said Gough, who was watched by her family from Bishampton.

"We also knew the Roman-ians were putting in a different crew so we needed to race even harder out of the blocks," she continued.

This the British boat did to stay with the pack until halfway when the Romanians had a bit more left in the tank to pull away and take first place.

Britain battled gamely on and crossed the line fourth behind Germany and Be-arus, eight seconds behind the winners.

"It was all a wonderful experience that I hope to repeat," the former Evesham girl declared.

The Eight was then split into two for seat trials for the next round of the World Cup in Munich next month when Gough will be hoping to get in among the medals.