The GB Rowing Team won an outstanding gold medal to add to yesterday's silver and bronze at the World U23 Championships in Lithuania - with a number of other crews finishing just outside the medals and showing promise for the 2016 Olympic cycle.
Kieren Emery and Matthew Tarrant raised their arms then pumped their fists after crossing the finish line in Trakai to add the World U23 title in the men's pair to the Lottery-funded GB squad's silver in the women's pair and bronze in the men's four from Saturday's finals.
It was Emery's second World U23 title in as many years after winning the 2011 lightweight pairs with Team GB's Peter Chambers, followed by the senior World title in the same event, before stepping up to openweight for 2012. For Tarrant this was a major step up from the bronze he won in the 2011 men's eight and is his first Championship title.
In the other finals the men's and women's eight both finished a narrow fourth, impressively close to the medals, and there were proud performances too from Rachel Gamble-Flint, sixth in the women's single scull and Michael Mottram, fifth in the lightweight men's single scull.
GB's sculling squad also provided cheer for the next generation of the team who have their sights on Rio in 2016 with two victories in the B finals.
The men's double scull of Jack Beaumont and Jonathan Walton and the lightweight women's double of Eleanor Piggott and Charlotte Burgess both won their events while Zak Lee-Green and Jamie Coombes came within a whisker of winning the B final of the lightweight men's double scull, pipped by Hungary on the line.
"It has been a good performance overall, and the men's pair was an impressive win, but we also had a number of near misses," said GB's team manager for the U23s Steve Gunn. "The men's double and the lightweight women won their B final so strongly and the two eights rowed fantastically well. They've done so well they're disappointed, but that just reflects their ambition and the tightness of the racing here.
"In terms of development, half the team had never been to a World Championship before and a lot have shown the potential to step up for Rio 2016. It was a strong team performance."
The triumphant British men's pair led from the start and controlled the race from lane six, with Newcastle's Emery at bow keeping a regular look across at the German crew in lane three who were second for much of the race.
Leander Club's Emery and Oxford Brookes rower Tarrant, from Shepperton, were fastest off the start with South Africa but by halfway had a two second cushion on Germany in second and upped their rate at the finish to hold off the charge from South Africa who rowed through the Germans to take silver.
Germany set the pace at the start of the women's single scull featuring GB's Rachel Gamble-Flint who stayed settled in the chasing pack after qualifying for the final with an impressive second place in yesterday's semi-final.
The 20-year-old Leander Club rower from Darlington stepped up her pace in the middle of the race to move into third and was in the mix until the final sprint when Denmark's Rikke Quist and the Canadian Carling Zeeman pulled clear of the rest to claim silver and bronze behind German winner Julia Lier. The Norwegian and Latvian scullers just beat Gamble-Flint to the line.
In the blue-riband eights finals the British women were part of a rousing finale. The GB crew of Aberdeen's Iona Riley, Rebecca Chin from Conwy, Tees rower Josephine Wratten, University of Bath rower Amelda Gare from Richmond, Evesham's Yasmin Tredell, Glasgow's Claire McKeown, Bicester's Fiona Gammond, Olivia Oakes from Warrington and cox Charlotte Jackson from Durham University Boat Club started well, half a length up on the pack along with USA who won the preliminary race for lanes yesterday.
By halfway the USA were edging ahead and the GB crew were stroking hard in search of silver just ahead of Germany. But in the tense, closing sprint, first Germany and then Holland clawed back the British crew to deny them a medal by less than a second, with GB finishing fourth.
The men's eight had a different race but with the same result. The 2012 crew of Cameron MacRitchie from Oxford, James Edwards from Henley, Newcastle's Samuel Arnot, York's Adam Janes, Windsor brothers Oliver and James Cook, Ertan Hazine from Maidenhead, Oxford University Boat Club president Alexander Davidson and cox Maximilian Gander from Oxford stayed with the main group in the frantic drive down the course and picked up their pace in the second half as the Germans and then the Americans moved away.
The USA rowed through the Germans to win gold as the crowd roared the crews home and Australia did just enough to deny Britain bronze in the closing metres, GB finishing fourth in the dramatic final race of the Championships.
Michael Mottram from Stoke Mandeville had a good start in the first A final with British interest today - the lightweight men's single scull. Out in lane five in choppy conditions, the Leander Club rower stayed with the pack until just before halfway when Greece, Germany, Switzerland and Holland edged away for an exciting four-boat finish won by Greece, with Mottram claiming fifth spot, 10 seconds clear of the Ukrainian in sixth.
GB's first B final of the day, in the men's double scull, saw Jack Beaumont from Maidenhead and Loughborough's Jonathan Walton settle in just behind leaders Belgium and Switzerland before turning on the afterburners in the final 500m to row straight through both crews and win by a couple of seconds. The double were disappointed to miss out on the A final and made their point in this race on Lake Galve.
Britain and Poland led the way off the start of the lightweight women's double scull B final until Wallingford rower Eleanor Piggett from Olney and her club team-mate Charlotte Burgess from Swineshead stroked to a two-second initiative on the Poles and the chasing French crew by half-way.
The GB crew doubled the margin in the third quarter and then opened the tank to win five seconds clear from Poland and eight from France.
You could throw a blanket over the lightweight men's double scull field at halfway in their B final but the GB boat of Cardiff's Zak Lee Green and Hereford's Jamie Coombes would have had it's bow ball poking out in front.
Hungary and GB emerged as the contenders for first place ahead of Belgium, Canada and Italy in the chasing pack and the British double dug in to claim second, just eight tenths of a second behind winners Hungary.
Sam Knight from Addlestone, Cardiff's Joshua Bugajski, Loughborough's Edward Couldwell and Durham University's Angus Groom were still very much in the mix of the men's quadruple scull B final with 500m to go.
The finish line couldn't quite come soon enough though as they faded to finish fifth behind winners Germany, Estonia, Russia and Romania, but held off Switzerland in sixth.
The development work for the Lottery-funded GB U23 team will continue after an early start on Monday to fly home to the UK, with a number of the squad involved in preparations for the World University Rowing Championships in Kazan, Russia, from September 7-9 and the European Rowing Championships in Varese, Italy, from September 12-16.