European Rowing Championships: Shorten secures silver as Scott earns bronze

There were medals for Belfast's Rebecca Shorten and Hannah Scott from Coleraine at the European Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia, but perhaps not the colour either wanted.

Shorten and her team-mates, Helen Glover, Rowan McKellar and Heidi Long in the Great Britain women's four were overhauled by Romania in the final 500m and had to settle for silver.

In the GB women's quad sculls, Scott, Lauren Henry, Georgia Brayshaw and Lucy Glover finished third behind winners Ukraine and the Netherlands.

There were a lot of expectations for the women's four with the return of Glover who is attempting to reach a fourth Olympic Games. The boat was unbeaten in 2022 winning both the European and World titles and stroked by Shorten, they led by a length over Romania at the halfway mark of the final.

However, while their race pace was faster than anyone else what they lacked was a sprint finish and when the Romanians went up through the gears in the closing stages the Great Britain quartet couldn't respond.

It's an issue that they'll look to put right as the season moves on towards the World Championships in September.

The Irish boat of Aifric Keogh, Tara Hanlon, Fiona Murtagh and Eimear Lambe, who included three of the country's Olympic bronze medallists from two years ago, were a long way back in fifth place.

Shorten described the British boat's narrow defeat as "very frustrating".

"It's a start to the season where we have struggled a bit with our rhythm in training. So that will be something to continuously work on. It had been improving but not in time for this regatta," added the Belfast woman.

"We will be heading to Varese in a few weeks time for the World Cup and looking forward to finding some more speed before then."

After an injury plagued 2022 in the single sculls, Scott was back in the bigger boat in which she made her Olympic debut in Tokyo two years ago.

They never got on terms in the second half of the race with Ukraine or the Dutch although for a new crew a bronze medal in their first regatta was a notable result despite some disappointed expressions at the end.

Meanwhile, sculling for Ireland, Banbridge's Philip Doyle and partner Daire Lynch booked their place in Sunday's final of the men's double sculls with another confident row in the semi-finals.

The Irish duo trailed in last place after 500m but gradually worked their way through the field to finish second and were closing on Olympic champions Martin and Valent Sinkovic from Croatia as the line approached.

Coleraine's Hugh Moore and Olympic champion Fintan McCarthy were sixth in the final of the lightweight men's double sculls behind winners Switzerland.

Moore was substituting for Paul O'Donovan who was graduating in medicine at UCC this weekend.