High-five for British rowers

Great Britain collected five medals including a golden hat-trick on finals day at the World Rowing Cup event in Lucerne.

The men's four, women's pair and women's double scull all served notice of their potential for Olympic success with victories in the morning.

Such standards could not be maintained in the afternoon session, although the lightweight men's four collected bronze and the men's eight wrapped up the day with a silver medal.

Helen Glover and Heather Stanning kicked off Britain's golden morning when they held off a strong field to win the women's pair event, building on a fast start to top the podium in seven minutes 2.14 seconds. They finished ahead of the United States, with New Zealand's world champions Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown back in third.

Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger carried on the British momentum as they powered clear in the double scull, leaving Poland to take silver after a tight battle with Germany.

The men's four of Alex Gregory, Peter Reed, Tom James and Andrew Triggs-Hodge produced the morning's most dramatic British win, coming from half a length behind Australia to take the lead in the final 20 strokes and eventually win by over a second.

Reed said afterwards: "We had a feeling before the race that they would try to do something special. That's the way they raced in Bled last year and in the Olympic final as well. The Australian boat is always very classy but moving past them in the last 500 (metres) is something we hadn't seen from our crew yet and that can be massively improved."

The lightweight men's four of Paul Mattick, Richard Chambers, Rob Williams and Chris Bartley were fancied to add to the gold rush and led in the early stages, but were overhauled by China and South Africa and had to settle for bronze.

Chambers said afterwards: "Obviously it's disappointing to come away with the bronze but it was good to beat the Danes who beat us last week.

"The Chinese and South Africans have beaten us now so it gives us something to fight for and we're in a good place."