OXFORD Brookes University Boat Club once again showed their prowess across Europe, writes John Wiggins.

While several individuals featured prominently for Great Britain in the World Cup event in Belgrade, the outstanding achievement came in Ratzeburg where the first three places were filled by Brookes’ crews.

And they still had enough resources to race at the Metropolitan Regatta at Dorney Lake.

In Germany, the tidal wave that is Brookes’ men’s squad produced a phenomenal display at the Ratzeburg International Regatta.

As well as taking the top three places in the men’s event, their victorious crew again lowered their club record in the 2,000m to 5mins 29.06secs.

Quentin Antongnielli, Ed Grisdale, Sam Nunn, Matthew Hnatiw, Rory Gibbs, Matthew Aldridge, Henry Swarbrick, Morgan Bolding and Harry Brightmore (cox) rightly took the plaudits.

A further crew – Richard Hume, Chris Tebb, James Fox, Edward Grimster with cox Laura Hyatt – also triumphed in the coxed fours, while the Brookes women’s quad were a close second in their final.

In the World Cup, the British men’s eight finished impressively, but had to settle for second behind a much more established German crew.

The boat included Brookes’ Matt Tarrant, Oxford University’s Josh Bugajski and former Radley schoolboy, Ollie Wynne-Griffith.

The GB women’s eight also finished second, with Oxford Blue Anastasia Chitty and Headingtonian, Fiona Gammond on board.

The duo were both racing in their second final of the morning, having frustratingly finished fourth in the pair and coxless four respectively.

Lightweight sculler Jamie Copus continues at Oxford Brookes and was competing in his first World Cup regatta as a single sculler, finishing fifth in a tightly-contested B final.

George Rossiter, like Copus an alumnus of Abingdon School, won his B final in the pair.

Wallingford RC’s Ellie Piggott tasted success with her sculling partner Emily Craig at the 2016 World Championships, but found this Olympic class event much hotter.

This combination, along with all the GB crews, have more to come but in this first race of the season were happy to take away bronze medals, narrowly missing silver by 0.34 seconds.

At the Metropolitan Regatta, Brookes came close to more success, but at best they could only claim second places for the women’s coxed four and men’s coxless four where they also took the third slot.

There was, however, victory for Wallingford RC in the men’s T4 club coxed fours for James Wright, Rob Hines, Rob Mason, Jonny Mentor and cox, Daina Sadurska.