After returning to England after Munich world cup I spent a few days in bed with a stinking cold, while everyone else resumed training.

Our Coaches have a pool of Athletes trialing for a place in an Olympic boat, so it was decided to try out a few new combinations. The first week of training was spent training in coxless fours, this boat type travels much slower than the eight and you are able to feel changes in technique on how the boat travels more than in the eight.

The second week we moved the eight to a stretch of the Thames in Wallingford, which is just outside Henley. Here we had 10Km of river to use which helped us to develop more continuous training, and we could be coached from a motor launch.

We flew to Switzerland on the Wednesday ready to start racing on the Friday. The rowing Lake is in a town called Lucerne and it is probably one of the prettiest locations I have ever visited. The lake is completely natural set in the bottom of a valley and is holds a special place in so many rowers hearts due to its raw beauty.

Friday came round quickly and I wasn't feeling as confident about my rowing as I had been a few weeks previously. The boat seemed less stable making finding the front end of the stroke more of a lottery from my opinion, this in turn seemed to make the whole stroke shorter and less developed. My suspicions were confirmed in the heat where we rowed badly and were beaten by Australia and Germany meaning we had to race on the Saturday for a place in the final.

The next race we faired a little better making some technical changes and improving our speed to beat the Germans but the Chinese were in front of us. The way we were rowing was so frustrating for me, I knew what I had to change to improve but found the application of what I needed to do nearly impossible.

Having a meeting on the Saturday evening Was stressful for everyone and it became a little heated and much of this was coming from me. It was decided we should change the order of the crew a little to see if that would be more productive.

Sundays final came round quickly and our rowing felt a little improved and we won a bronze medal.China and Canada in front of us with Canada looking extremely strong. Although this second world cup race was far from ideal we still have speed with so much to improve. Training for the next three weeks before we Race at the last world cup, the last race before the Olympic games is going to be very intense but I'm looking forward to it.