European Rowing Championships: Grainger and Thornley into final

Thornley and Grainger will compete in the final on Sunday

British Olympic champion Katherine Grainger and team-mate Vicky Thornley are through to the double sculls final at the European Rowing Championships.

Grainger, at her first international competition since 2012, and Thornley were second behind Lithuania's Donata Vistartaite and Milda Valciukaite in their semi-final in Poznan, Poland.

Elsewhere, Britain's world champion men's eight won their repechage.

That means 15 of the 17 British boats will be in final action on Sunday.

Glasgow-born Grainger, 39, took a sabbatical after winning double sculls gold with Anna Watkins at London 2012.

She returned to training last September and has been paired with St Asaph rower Thornley, 27, who beat her in the single scull final at the GB trials in April.

"Like yesterday, we were pleased with some things and some not," Thornley said, referring to Friday's heats..

"We'll have a talk with our coach and I'm confident we can make improvements tomorrow."

The GB men's eight, which includes Olympic coxless four gold medallists Alex Gregory and Pete Reed, had finished third in their heat on Friday, behind Russia and the Netherlands.

But the two-time world champions recovered to preserve their hopes of adding the European crown - as did the men's quad and women's eight in their repechages.

Olympic and world champions Helen Glover and Heather Stanning comfortably won their women's pair semi-final.

And the new-look lightweight men's double of Richard Chambers and Will Fletcher also eased through.

Angus Groom earned a surprise place in the men's single scull final by finishing third on his senior international debut.

And there were also second places for Kat Copeland and Charlotte Taylor in the light double, and for the lightweight men's four.