ALISON Mowbray is confident that her quadruple sculls crew will benefit from their no-risk approach when they look to end Great Britain's gold medal drought on Sunday.

Richmond-born Mowbray, who finished tenth in the women's single sculls at Sydney, provided a rare bright spot for the British team when she helped her crew win their qualifying race to move directly to the weekend's final.

Mowbray, Debbie Flood, Frances Houghton and Rebecca Romero were the fastest qualifiers by almost a second and, after winning gold medals at the recent World Cup regattas in Lucerne and Poznan, will start as favourites on Sunday.

Germany were the only other nation to go straight through to the final, with every other crew still to negotiate an energy-sapping repechage system that acts as a second route into Sunday's showdown.

The early rounds are all about striking a balance between qualification and keeping enough in the tank for the final, but Mowbray is delighted to have dispelled all doubts at such an early stage.

"After winning in Lucerne we wanted to show that we are still the boss," said Mowbray, who was a pupil at Richmond School before taking up rowing at Liverpool University. "We wanted to dominate the heat and that's what we did.

"The main thing is that we are now in the final. We wanted to make sure of that. Who knows what can happen in a repechage? Crews can catch a crab or anything. So it's good that we have qualified."

Russia pushed them hard in the opening stages of Sunday's qualifier, but the quartet's winning time of six minutes 15.60seconds was nearly a second quicker than Germany, the reigning world champions.

"We were very pleased with the race," added Houghton. "We don't have to worry about any other races now, we can just concentrate on the final and save our energy for that.

"When Russia was leading we just had to stay cool and relax. It was not easy but we did not panic and we came through.

"We don't think the pressure is a major problem - we know what we can do and the pressure comes from ourselves."

The quartet are hoping to eclipse the achievements of Katherine Grainger, Guin Batten, Gillian Lindsay and Miriam Batten - the foursome that took bronze in the quadruple sculls event at Sydney, Britain's first women's rowing medal since the sport was included at the 1976 Montreal Games.

"Winning the heat was the first aim at the Olympics," said Houghton. "The next is gold."

Ironically, the British quartet's biggest challenge could come from the heavy meltemia winds that swept across Athens yesterday, forcing the cancellation of the entire rowing programme.

Matt Smith, executive director of world rowing governing body Fisa, remains confident the weather will not cause major problems but could, in a worse case scenario, cancel the repecharge races and progress crews based on their world rankings.

* Stephen Parry rescued what was threatening to be another dismal night for Britain's swimmers when he stormed into tonight's final of the 200m butterfly - qualifying as the fastest man in the field and beating American favourite Michael Phelps in the process.

The 27-year-old had only squeezed into the semi-finals as the 16th qualifier but he found his form in sensational style and stormed to victory in a personal best time of 1:55.57 - a new British record.