Last weekend saw the last of the three World Rowing Cup regattas take place on the famous Rotsee course at Lucerne in Switzerland where Imogen Walsh and her Inverness GB team member Alan Sinclair raced in women's lightweight double sculls and men's coxed pairs respectively.

In Sunday's final of the women's lightweight double sculls event, which Imogen and her crewmate Kat Copeland reached by winning the semi, the GB crew were second at 500m to Sweden and as the race moved towards halfway the Australians also contested the lead. At one point all three leading boats looked dead-level. Just before the 1500m the GB boat, in a very tight scenario, nudged out front.

They looked as if they were building a lead but Australia still continued to challenge momentarily before Walsh and Copeland stepped up another gear to win by clear-water in 7:08.17 from Australia and Canada in silver and bronze respectively.

"I am really happy with today's race because I think we had more pressure on us than in France and we still did well despite that pressure" , said Copeland.
Walsh added: "It's a nice pressure to be under when people expect you to do well. I feel that as a crew we have a lot now to build on".

Sunday's final of the men's coxed pairs event developed into a very close race between the GB crew of Alan Sinclair, Scott Durant and cox Henry Fieldman and a strong German pairing which saw the GB crew holding a canvas lead over the first part of the course before the German crew pushed through to lead by one length at the 1500 metre mark. GB responded strongly in the sprint to the line and closed the margin but just missed out on gold by 0.59 seconds to claim their silver medal with the Dutch crew in bronze medal position.

Both Inverness athletes now head off to separate training camps in Europe over the next few weeks to prepare for the World Rowing Championships which take place in the Netherlands at the end of August on the Bosbaan rowing course in Amsterdam.