The Great Britain men’s eight brought the curtain down in style  and the crowd to their feet to win the men’s eight gold medal by just eight hundredths of a second from their big rivals and Olympic champions Germany at the World Cup regatta in Lucerne on Sunday.

Matt Gotrel, Constantine Louloudis, Pete Reed, Paul Bennett, Surbiton's Mohamed Sbihi, Alex Gregory, Molesey Boat Club's George Nash, Will Satch and cox Phelan Hill led early on before Germany mounted a charge which brought them back bow-ball to bow-ball with the British crew.

An immense effort in the final ten strokes kept the challenge at bay and gave world champions GB the gold in five minutes 33.95 seconds.

"It was pretty nerve-wracking in the boat, I don’t know what it was like watching, but it was good to stay on the right side of it,” said Sbihi.

Earlier, European champions James Foad and Matt Langridge marked their return to World Cup action after an injury pause with a barnstorming second half to take silver in the men’s pair behind the New Zealand Olympic Champions.

Foad said: “We have to take confidence from that. We were nine seconds behind New Zealand this time last year, but we are closing the gap and there is still more to come from us."