THREE local rowers, two of them oarsmen who learned their skills on the River Aire as fellow pupils at Bradford Grammar School, celebrated victory at the Henley Royal Regatta.

Guiseley's Edward Johnson and Debbie Flood and Eldwick's Richard Hardy won gold medals at the famous regatta.

Edward won his gold rowing for Imperial College in the men's students' coxed fours where they beat Oxford University's Isis Boat Club.

At the prizegiving Ed received his winner's medal from Prince Albert of Monaco.

Stroke Ed has been selected to row for Great Britain at the World Student Games, to be held in Breve, France, this summer.

Imperial's all-the-way victory by half a length was the first in a student event for them since they lifted the Temple Challenge Cup in 1998.

The crew of four undergraduates and one MSc postgraduate are the first to win Henley's newest event, inaugurated this year.

Two of the crew, Ed Johnson and Simon Hislop, are among the first to benefit from Imperial Rowing Scholarships, which were launched in 2003 and are worth £5,000 per year.

After the race stroke Ed had to be helped from the boat, suffering from exhaustion.

The four crew members have been rowing together since last autumn, with one change in the bow seat, they were third fastest coxless four at the Fours Head in November.

Their preparations for Henley included wins at the British Universities Sports Association regatta; Ghent International regatta in Belgium; and a third place at the Metropolitan regatta.

Both Ed and Richard took up rowing under the tutelage of Simon Darnborough whilst at Bradford Grammar School and continued the sport at university.

Richard, also 23, was a winner at Henley with Molesey in the Britannia Cup coxed fours.

Edward is studying for an MSc in Advanced Methods in Taxonomy and Biodiversity at Imperial College while Richard has a degree in geography, gained at Kings, and is now teaching in Teddington.

By a strange quirk of fate another rower enjoying gold medal success at Henley was former Guiseley athlete Debbie Flood, who at one time used to deliver the Johnson's newspaper.

Debbie initially took up the sport on an indoor rowing machine at a local health club. She obviously had a talent for the sport and transferred to the boats with ease.

Debbie is a member of Britain's World Cup winning women's four and they took the plaudits on the final morning of the Henley Royal Regatta.

They produced a stunning display to win the Princess Grace Trophy fresh from their World Cup triumph in Lucerne.

The quartet of Debbie, Alison Mowbray, Frances Houghton and Rebecca Romero overpowered a Ukrainian four to win by two-and-threequarter lengths. The British crew were representing Leander and the University of London.

Reading University student Debbie, 24, and her fellow team members in the quadruple sculls team won the gold medal for Britain in Lucerne on Rotsee Lake.

Their victory came after a torrential hailstorm but it did not deter the girls who beat a far more experienced German crew by less than a tenth of a second.

The two crews went head to head for the second 1,000 metres but with their last chance to do something special before the Olympic Games in Athens the British girls pulled out all the stops.

Debbie won a gold medal at the 1999 World U-23 Championships in the double sculls. She narrowly missed Olympic selection last time after winning gold in the single scull at the World U-23 Championships in Denmark.