For most, climbing onto a World Championship medal rostrum and having a silver medal placed around your neck would be enough.

But not ambitious Edinburgh rower Callum Brierty and GB team mates who were so disappointed with finishing second in last weekend's World Junior Championships in the Czech

CallumMcBrierty_2009_web.jpgRepublic that all were in floods of tears through the medal ceremony.

The strapping 6"7½ seventeen year old had had devoted at least half his year (the rest allocated to his Highers) to qualifying for the GB lead boat in the coxless fours. His winning attitude did not allow him to contemplate anything less than first place.

Unfortunately a boat from Romania had a similar plan and beat the Brits by just over two seconds in the final.

"We had the best races we possibly could have, we gave it everything we could have and we almost capsized at the end because we had collapsed with exhaustion," said Callum who has this season been supported by the East of Scotland Institute of sport, part of sportscotland's institute of sport regional network.

"The annoying thing was that despite having had the best race we could have it still wasn't good enough to win.

"It's not a nice thing to accept the fact that there was a crew that was better than us. In all the photos of us on the podium we were crying because no one wants to get silver."

Callum had been determined to retain the Worlds title won a year ago by a crew including fellow Scot Andrew Holmes.

He had competed in a European Championships previously but never before at Worlds level. The stakes were far higher, the pressure greater than anything he had encountered previously.

That he thrived in a situation where others crumbled will hold him in good stead for his future ambitions of competing in the Olympics.

"It was really quite intense and you could see that people were getting horrendously worked up," he said.

"People have said that the pressure and intensity of rowing in a Worlds has put them off the sport, but I absolutely loved it and the experience has spurred me on to want to do it again at under 23 level, then at senior level, then the Olympics.

"I'm now an under 23 athlete and will hopefully be in the under 23 team next year."