Southborough, Kent rowing star Edward Couldwell is hungry to take his sculling to the next level after representing Great Britain for the first time at the World U23 Championships in Lithuania last weekend, writes Oliver Porritt in the Kent & Sussex Courier.

Great Britain’s under-23 men’s quadruple sculls. Couldwell is rowing at ‘3’, second from the right.

Couldwell, 20, was part of the quadruple scull which finished fifth in the B final of a regatta packed full of crews looking to be part of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

The former St Andrews, Beechwood and Tunbridge Wells Grammar School pupil was disappointed not to make the A final, but relished the opportunity to test himself in competition.

“It was a brilliant experience but it was a little disappointing in the end to under-perform,” he said. “The calibre of rowers at this level is not something I had come up against before.

“But coming out to the water wearing a GB vest was a fantastic feeling and that first heat was the perfect way to start the event.”

The British crew finished that race second behind Australia to qualify for the semi-finals with ease, and Couldwell revelled in the atmosphere.

He said: “I came off the water so excited on that first day and it was a feeling like nothing I’ve experienced before. When we started six weeks ago our starts were pretty slow but we’d worked on that and we went out clear in the first heat before Australia came back at us.

“After the heats we looked at all the qualifiers and there were no more than five seconds separating all the crews – it was that close.”

The top three from each semi-final qualified for the A final, but the British quartet came fifth over the 2000m course, just 3.5 seconds behind the Czech boat in third.

This result put them into the B final, though illness struck down one of their crew before the race, meaning they could only finish fifth.

Couldwell said: “The margin for error is so small at this level and if you are slightly off you have no chance. On the last day one of the guys was really suffering and in the second half of the B final we could feel the boat get heavy.

“We lost a little composure as we were coming under increasing pressure, though it was a real learning curve. But we are a really young crew. I still have another year as an U23 and two of the others have a couple of years left.

“So we have a very realistic chance of developing this boat and will be very strong when we come back next year.”