GLOUCESTER girls Beth Rodford and Natasha Page are confident they can book a place in the Olympic women's eight final tomorrow.

After their heat was put back 24 hours by a storm at the Shunyi Rowing Park, Rodford and Page helped the British crew to second place behind the United States.

But their performance means they can have every confidence now of going through tomorrow's five-boat repechage to make the medal race-off.

Page said the previous day's storm delay had been difficult, but it had worked to their advantage.

"We were sat on the start the day before, the nerves jangling and thinking, 'What on earth am I doing here', when the starter shouted, 'All crews back to the boathouse'.

"We were all going, 'Oh no, not now, we want to race'.

"It was quite hard going back to the hotel and trying to chill out again, but we'd had a really good warm-up and I think that practice the day before stood us in good stead."

Looking ahead, the 23-year-old added: "It's fantastic being at the Olympics and that's a really good start. We've definitely got more raw speed and it was a good race, but there's always things you can improve on and there's plenty more to work on now before the rep."

Rodford, whose parents Sue and Phil were watching in the stands, added: "Earlier in the year, we were always getting dropped off the early pace, but we've really worked on that and we showed we've got it.

"Eight of us have never been to the Olympics before – only Sarah Winckless who won bronze in the double in Athens – so in fact the 'dry run' of getting ready to go the day before did us a lot of good because we had a really good warm-up and knew we could do it again the next day.

"Now we'll do a few more starts, a bit more distance, relax and get ready to step on again and make the final."