Tom Ford and Emily Ford at Račice World Rowing Championships

Leander Club pair Tom Ford and his sister Emily, former students of The Grange School in Hartford who hail from Holmes Chapel, have qualified with their crews for the medal races at Labe Arena in Račice, Czech Republic.

Tom, 29, will be in the Great Britain men's eight boat on Sunday aiming to match the gold medal won in this year's European Championships.

Emily, 27, and her clubmate Esme Booth, who won silver together at the Europeans, will be in the women's pair final on Saturday.

Tom and crewmates Rory Gibbs, Morgan Bolding, David Bewicke-Copley, Sholto Carnegie, Charlie Elwes, Tom Digby, James Rudkin and cox Harry Brightmore continued their unbeaten run this season with a first place heat finish on Tuesday that put them straight through to the World Rowing Championships Final.

They finished 1.64 seconds ahead of the Romian boat.

As well as being the current European Champions, the GB men's eight won gold at the two World Cups contested this season.

Bewicke-Copley said: “This was a good first step. There are plenty of very quick crews in these heats but we’re happy to have got the job done and hope that we can build on that for the final.”

Emily, however, has come through two races to reach Saturday's final.

She and Booth finished third in today's second women's pair semi-final in the Czech Republic's central Bohemia region, approximately nine and five seconds behind the New Zealand and USA boats respectively and seven seconds ahead of the fourth-placed Australian boat.

They had finished second in their heat to reach the semi-finals.

Emily learned to row as a junior and first represented GB at the World Rowing Junior Championships in 2012.

She then won successive medals at the World U23 Championships; a bronze in the four in 2015 and a silver in the eight in 2016.

Her first appearances for the senior team came at two World Cup regattas in 2018. That year she also won the Town Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta in a GB Rowing Team composite crew.

In 2019 she was selected in the coxless four for the European Rowing Championships, where she finished sixth, and World Championships, where she came seventh.

Moving into the eight in 2021, she was fourth at the European Championships and sixth at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Throughout 2022 she has raced in a pair with Booth, winning at World Cup I and taking the bronze medal at World Cup III before securing the silver medal at the European Rowing Championships, where the duo doubled up into the eight, gaining a second silver.

Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Tom Ford currently holds the stroke role for the GB men's eight.

Newcastle University graduate Ford was first selected for the GB rowing team at U23 level in 2013 when he raced in the men’s eight at the World Rowing U23 Championships, finishing fifth.

In 2014 he was part of the GB under 23 men’s eight that placed sixth, and the gold-medal winning FISU men’s eight.

After university, he joined Leander Club to train full-time and was invited to train full-time with the GB rowing team in 2017 when he raced in the coxed pair with fellow Newcastle alumnus Tim Clarke at the World Championships with cox Harry Brightmore, finishing fourth.

In 2018, in the men’s coxless four, he came second at the European Championships and third at the World Championships, results he repeated in 2019, but this time with the men’s eight.

Still in the eight, he won the gold medal at the 2021 and 2022 European Championships.