HANLEY Swan's world indoor rowing record holder Anna Bailey (Old Wrecks IRC) won the gold medal in the European Indoor Rowing Championships at Amsterdam's Sportshalle Zuid on Saturday.

More than 1400 competitors representing 17 countries took part in the championships in front of a packed crowd. The British contingent was over 90 strong, and came away with a medal collection of 12 gold, five silver and nine bronze.

Anna stormed to first place in the women's 50+ race with a season's best time of 7.18.6 and 30 seconds clear of the opposition.

Being world champion and usually taking the top spot in events has not dulled Anna's motivation, even when she wins by a large margin.

She said: "I suppose the reason is that in this sport, it's always about personal challenge. After a race, no-one ever asks about your position except briefly, only about your time in relation to your personal best time.

"If it was on the water, no-one would care about the time as long as your boat comes in half an inch ahead of the opposition. There's a lot of respect in the sport between competitors. It doesn't matter whether you are a world champion or a novice in your first race, the pain is the same, the challenge is the same, and everyone understands.

"Most races I could just paddle it and still win, but I don't - I always have goals agreed beforehand with my coach. Many of the races are used as training runs, testing race plans out. No-one can be at peak all the time and especially not as you get older. Power is being lost at a fixed percentage per year with age, so a lot of training is done just to tread water.

"I'm not sure whether I'll get to the Worlds in the US in February. C2 took more people to the Europeans this year and so are not sponsoring anyone to Boston this time. I've been lucky to have been one of only eight each of the last three years to receive a free pass over there.

"I'm doing a 6k race in Amsterdam next month, just to do something different from the usual 2k grind. I went for the first time last January and set a new veterans' record, anyone over 30 is a veteran in Holland, so I'd like to try and improve that.

"I'd like to try and find sponsorship generally but haven't the first idea how to go about it," she said.