Three London Rowing Club members had encouraging starts to their Olympic year by claiming silver medals at the first World Cup regatta in Belgrade last weekend.

Bill Lucas in the men’s double scull, Sophie Hosking in the lightweight women’s double scull and Rob Williams in the lightweight men’s four all found themselves on the second step of the podium.

There was disappointment though for Imogen Walsh as she could only come second in the B final in the lightweight women’s double scull, while Putney-based Phelan Hill coxed the men’s eight to another silver.

Lucas, reunited with old partner Sam Townsend, was delighted with second behind the German crew.

“This event is so exciting and we can take a real positive from this result.

“In an ideal world we would like to have been in a stronger place earlier in the race but sometimes you can’t do that against such world class crews.”

Hosking has a new partner in Kat Copeland in the double scull and the pair put in a strong second half of the race to finished behind the Greek team.

“It was a really promising start as a new combination,” she said.

“You can tell it’s Olympic year by the intensity crews are putting into the start of their races.

“But we were ready for that and wanted to get into our rhythm and move on from there.”

Williams and his team were in contention with Denmark throughout their final but were just edged out by their perennial rivals.

“We were leading with about 200m to go and that was really pleasing,” said Williams.

“Virtually all of our opposition was there barring the Australians and we are a new combination so it’s good to see where we are in the world.

“It would have been nice to get a win but I’m happy with where we are.”

The men’s eight concluded the racing programme and although GB matched the Germans for most of the race, they fell just short at the end, “It was a good race and there is more to come,” said Hill.

“It was a nice feeling to be in the race at 1,000m instead of chasing in the second 1,000m so we need to keep that going.”