Kingswear's Bill Lucas reached the final of the men's double scull with Sam Townsend in the second World Cup in Lucerne, the last race before the Olympic crew announcement on June 6, but was unable to add to GB's medal tally, finishing sixth.

'We said it would be tougher here and that's been proven', said the GB rowing team performance director, David Tanner.

'We have still had some outstanding performances and I'm really pleased with how it has gone.  The golds in the women's pair, men's four and women's double were all exciting. The lightweight men's four was a tough final and the men's eight gave us a good finish'.

 The British men's double of Lucas and Townsend, both graduates of the lottery-backed and Siemens-sponsored Start talent identification and development programme, have already cut a dash this season after being in last year's quad.

They were silver medallists in the world cup three weeks ago but in a thinner field than here. 

In the final on Sunday though they found the pace hot in the first half and then searched for the kind of speed, after recent heavy sets of training, that would get them back into contention.

Detached from the top three, but not outclassed, the British duo came home sixth.

 At the head of the field an exciting race was developing between the Germans, gold medallists in Belgrade, and the Olympic champions from Australia.  

Germany paced their race finish well to win in 6:14.76 – just under a second ahead of Australia.

Double scull results:

1 Eric Knittel and Stephan Krueger (Germany) 6:14.76

3 Cedric Berrest and Julien Bahain (France) 6:15.74

2 David Crawshay and Scott Brennan (Australia 1) 6:15.66

4 Luka Spik and Iztok Cop (Slovenia) 6:16.33

5 Saulius Ritter and Rolandas Mascinskas (Lithuania) 6:18.87

6 Bill Lucas and Sam Townsend (Great Britain) 6:19.45