Exclusive by Alex Hoad

Ashford rower Tom Ransley has his sights set on winning an Olympic gold medal after being named in TeamGB for London 2012.

The 26-year-old was named as part of the Great Britain’s men’s eight for the Olympic Games on Wednesday and insisted he was focused on claiming victory on home water.

He said: "I definitely feel like gold is a possibility. My approach is that I’m going there to win and I’d imagine every athlete is the same.

"There’s not much point in entering a competition if you’re not going to do your best and try to win."

Ransley (pictured) was twice on the losing side in the Boat Race for Cambridge University but was part of the GB eight which won silver at the 2010 and 2011 World Championships.

Ransley admitted to occasionally daydreaming about the London Olympics but remains focused on the next World Cup event in Munich on June 15-17, having claimed silvers in the opening two World Cup events of the season in Belgrade and Lucerne.

He said: "I don’t lie in bed thinking about London because the training programme is pretty hard so I don’t struggle to get off to sleep.

"It was not really until six or seven years ago that I started to think of (the Olympics) as a possibility and it was not until four or five years ago that I sort of ‘sold the farm’ to go for it.

"Since then, in general terms, there has not been much in my life that hasn’t been focused in some way toward achieving what I want to achieve in the Olympics. It’s pretty all-encompassing."