Jonny Walton insists he is out to make history this weekend after he and his crew reached the final of the men’s quadruple sculls at the European Rowing Championship in Glasgow.

The gold medal is one of the few to elude Great Britain so far but Leicester’s Walton, along with John Collins, Graeme Thomas and Thomas Barras have a strong chance of breaking that rut on Saturday after a powerful performance in the heats.

In a stacked field, they finished second to the Netherlands but beat the dangerous Russians to progress and Walton is adamant there is more to come.

The 27-year-old finished fifth in the double sculls at the Rio Olympics two summers ago but since switching to a boat of four his career has flourished on the world stage – winning World Championship silver a year ago.

And now he wants to go one better and make history in a home tournament at Strathclyde Country Park.

“We have been looking through the databases and can’t find a European victory in the men’s quad so we would love to get that,” he said.

“It is a big title and it has never been done before. That is obviously the goal this week. The main goal in this race was to straight through to the final and we have done that.

“We have done a lot of racing this season so it is nice to have a training day on Friday and work out how we will do it in a high-pressure situation in the final.

“This is the first year we are in this crew. The World Cup season went well for us and we are really pleased with how it has gone but we want to keep testing ourselves against the best in Europe.”

Standing in the way of Great Britain is the Netherlands, who looked impressive on their way to victory – and Walton is convinced it will be a straight fight.

“I think the Russians went out quite hard and we tracked them for the first half, got past them and eased off. We’ll leave the battle with the Dutch for the final.”

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