WORLD champion rower Peter Reed smashed the 500m sprint course pairs record on the Seville world championship course to take victory with Great Britain partner Andy Hodge.

The Nailsworth naval officer also helped his GB world gold medal four land the 1,000m title from Spain to preserve their unbeaten record.

But in a mixed weekend of 'fun racing' at the World Team Short Course Cup, the 24-year-old also suffered his first regatta defeats in 20 months, losing out over 1km with Olympic champion Steve Williams in the pair and by fourfeet over 500m in a GB 8.

"Andy and I were well out in front at the GB trials last week and we clicked again here," said naval officer Reed. "We were flying, and to take two seconds off the course record is a great boost. I think we're the benchmark in the GB team at the moment and we want to keep it that way."

Reed and his partner harnessed the tailwind to devastating effect to win by a commanding length and a half from Holland in 1 minute 29.02 seconds with Spain third.

Victory helped ease the pain of defeat earlier when Reed and world champion four crewmate Williams trailed in fourth in their eight-boat 1km final, the six foot six inch Oxford Blue's first regatta loss since Henley 2004.

"I'm not setting too much store in the defeats," said the former Cirencester Deer Park pupil. "We're just working on doing the long, low rating endurance miles at the moment, and this out of season sprint stuff is a bit of fun racing.

"But when you haven't lost for such a long time, it comes as a shock to findsomeone else in front.

"I felt a bit off colour on the day, but I still thought we could win and it's really disappointing. You forget how much losing hurts.

"GB coach Jurgen Grobler decided to switch things around after me and Andy won the GB trials to keep things interesting, but it didn't quite click with me and Steve in the race."

Hodge teamed up with their Cheltenham GB four crewmate Alex Partridge to win the 1km pairs by just six hundreds of a second from the Dutch duo, with Spain third and Reed and Williams fourth six seconds back.

All four also tasted surprise defeat in a scratch GB 8 in the last race of the regatta, losing out to Spain's top boat by three tenths of a second over 500m, much to the delight of the local supporters.

"We had loads of power, but we were just pulling it apart," said Reed. "But thats training camps, switching things around and trying different combinations in scratch boats."

But earlier, GB's 'oarsome foursome' - unbeaten in all 13 World Cup and world championship races last year - were comfortable three-quarter length winners over the 1km course from the top Spanish crew.

"It was a bit rusty," said Reed, "We haven't done much in the four together since the worlds in Japan in September, but the power's still there.

"We've got a lot of tough rowing to go to get back to last year's standards, and we know it's a long hard road.

"We're staying in Seville for the next two weeks and Jurgen's going to have us rowing a GB squad record 270km in the next seven days, so that's a measure of the work to be done ahead of defending our world title on Windor's Dorney Lake next summer.

"It's going to be eat, sleep and drink rowing and land work, training three times a day, but I'm sure we'll have a bit of fun too."