ROWING: A TYNEDALE rowing sensation continued her recovery from injury by helping Great Britain to an international medal.

A former member of Queen Elizabeth High School Rowing Club, Wall resident Nicole Lamb was part of the GB eight which came third in the U23 World Rowing Championships, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

The talented rower has shown great guts to regain full fitness after a long injury lay-off following surgery on her wrist back in December.

Nicole, who coaches locally with Hexham Rowing Club ladies’ section, has enjoyed success at the champs before, last year being part of the eight which won silver. She quickly followed that up with a gold and bronze at the European Universities Games.

In Bulgaria, the women‘s eight had finished third in an exhibition race for lanes and they repeated the feat with a well-planned performance in the final.

Reigning champions United States went into the event as favourites, but were matched stroke for stroke by Britain for the first 500m as a Russian crew surged into an early lead.

As expected, America pushed on and overtook their rivals to claim the gold by a good distance,

But Britain upped the tempo to claw back space on Russia and move well ahead of the Netherlands in fourth in the process.

They closed in on the tiring Russians towards the end, but they could not make up the required ground as they settled for the third spot on the podium.