Once in the lead they never looked back and by the middle of the race they had an impressive open water lead. Nurse, Roman, Deboef, Mastracci, Grainger, Roper, Brzozowicz, Wilkinson and coxswain Thompson-Willie of Canada looked to have this race all wrapped up.

Meanwhile Romania had slipped back into fourth with Great Britain and Germany ahead of the former Olympic and World Champions. As the last stretch of the race came into view it would take a huge mistake for Canada not to win. Romania was pulling out all the stops and threatening Great Britain’s silver medal. At the line the Canadians won and Romania came back to take silver. The British earned bronze.

Results: CAN, ROU, GBR, GER, NED, AUS

Gold – ROMAN, Lisa (CAN)

We had a good plan going in and I think we executed it. The A Final is tough because the whole field pushes for it but we had a bit more of an incentive because the Canadian Women’s Eight has never won in Lucerne before.

Silver – BOGHIAN, Andreea (ROU)

It was a good race. This is not the crew for the World Championships, at the Worlds we will have another team. I think it shows how strong Romanian women are.

Bronze – BRADBURY, Rosamund (GBR)

We are really disappointed with the race. We know we could have rowed a lot better. We are going to keep on trying to be the best team we can be. We can go back and look at what went wrong and how to improve for the upcoming Championships.