The open men's double scull of Kingswear's Bill Lucas, a former U23 world champion, and Sam Townsend looked slightly uncomfortable in their heat at the recent World Cup in Munich, despite having already been named as part of the Olympic squad.

It is perhaps not that surprising, given the heat had been dubbed the 'heat from hell' and included the world champions and Germany, who have been on the World Cup podium twice this year, plus a top-class Norwegian crew. 

In the early phases of the heats the Devon-Reading combination had dropped slightly off the leaders' pace in the first half of the race. They were behind Germany, world cup winners already this season, and Norway, but were ahead of New Zealand until 1200m gone.  

When the Kiwis came through into third, Lucas and Townsend dropped their rate totally and paddled home to conserve energy for the repechage, which they qualified through before making the final with ease.

As a new combination this season, they lined up with the Olympic champions David Crawshay and Scott Brennan of Australia as well as the world champions Nathan Cohen and Joseph Sullivan of New Zealand and a range of other former world champions and Olympic medallists. 

Townsend and Lucas, to be fair, rowed a cracking race in such company.   They were second throughout the first half behind race leaders Norway – the latter going on to win in 6:35.09.  

In a fantastic finish which set the crowd on its feet, Lucas and Townsend faded somewhat and were overhauled by New Zealand, who took the silver and Germany, who took the bronze.  

'It was after the first 1250m that we started to fade a bit', said Lucas.  'Now we have two big training camps, where we can make a big step.  We've got forty-odd days to make sure we get the next bit righ. We definitely want to get on the podium and get as far up it as possible'.

There are some real positives here for the duo, who came through the Siemens-sponsored GB Rowing Team Start programme into the sport, to take off to training camp with them.