Kirsty Miles, of Oxford Brookes University, and Lindsey Maguire, of Wallingford, returned from the European Championships with silver medals, writes Mike Rosewell.

Rowing in the Nos 6 and 7 seats of the British women’s eight, the duo had to adapt quickly when, due to the weather, the finals on the Olympic course in Athens were brought forward a day.

The British eight, unlike many crews in Greece, involved no members who had raced in the Olympics in Beijing, but they still pushed gold medallists Romania hard and were well ahead of the rest of the field.

Wallingford’s Andrea Dennis and her partner, Frances Fletcher, from Durham, were racing in their lightweight double scull only two weeks after taking a bronze medal in the World University Championships in Bel- grade.

They still made the final in the older, higher pedigree line-up, but finished fourth. They were led home by Greece, Poland and Hungary but finished ahead of Austria and Germany.

Dennis’s Wallingford clubmate – the 2007 world lightweight champion Paul Mattick – was back on local waters last weekend after finishing fifth in the GB lightweight Olympic four Mattick, racing in a single, was the fastest boat of the day – 7mins 4secs – in the Isis Sculls, amongst numbers of quads, doubles and singles.

Hinksey Sculling School excelled with four pennant wins.

City of Oxford did not have as many crews as usual involved, but their junior 15 boys quad were the second fastest boat of the day, six seconds slower than Mattick.