It was a successful day on the water in Racice for Britain’s rowers as three crews raced into finals with a further three progressing into semi-finals at the European Championships.
Rio 2016 silver medallist Vicky Thornley impressed in the single scull, while the women’s pair and quadruple sculls also made Sunday’s finals.
Elsewhere Olympic champions Moe Sbihi and Will Satch guided the men’s four into Saturday’s semi-finals while the men’s double and lightweight men’s double advanced to the semi-finals via their repechages.
Thornley dominated her heat to win by more than five seconds, while Holly Norton and Karen Bennett won by nearly double that margin in the pair.
The women’s quad finished second in their heat as they kept the Germans at bay to finish second behind the Netherlands, while the new-look men’s four showed their strength to beat France and Romania by two seconds in their heat.
Peter Chambers and Will Fletcher, who won gold at the recent World Cup regatta, lost out to Germany in their heat, but made it through the repechage to fight another day in Saturday’s semi-finals.
And it was a similar story in the lightweight double; Zak Lee-Green and Frazier Christie finished third in their repechage to make their semi-final.
Elsewhere the lightweight women’s double scull of Katherine Copeland and Emily Craig just missed out on the final, losing by half a second, while the men’s quadruple sculls finished second in their repechage but had to win it to make the next round.
The women’s eight had a run out in their test race, finishing second behind Romania with all five crews racing again in Sunday’s final, but the men’s boat struggled and finished fourth in their heat as the Romanian men sprung a shock.
Saturday will see Georgia Francis and Emily Carmichael race again in their double sculls repechage after finishing third in their heat on Friday, while the men’s pair of Matt Rossiter and Jacob Dawson almost got the second automatic qualification spot, but settled for third.
The day’s other race saw Joel Cassells and Sam Scrimgeour, going for a second consecutive title in the lightweight pair, finish fourth in their test, with the final to come on Sunday. Sportsbeat 2017