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Silver for Scott and Stratton at first World Cup

Olympic champions Hannah Scott and Lola Anderson, along with Finnola Stratton and Sarah McKay, finished second in the women’s quadruple sculls at the first World Cup of the season in Seville.

The Great Britain quartet were narrowly beaten by Germany but held of the fast finishing Romania boat for silver as a single second separated all three crews.

It was a positive start to the season for the new line up that saw Stratton, whose mum's family are from Cullybackey in County Antrim, make her senior international debut.

Scott and Anderson are Olympic champions from Paris and with McKay won silver at last year’s World Championships.

After a slow start, the quartet had a strong middle 1000m to move through the field and into second place.

However, at this early stage of the season, they could not quite see out the sprint and Germany, rowing with a much higher stroke rate, held on to win.

The ultimate goal for this season will be the World Championships in Amsterdam in August.

Teenager Young with impressive debut for Ireland

Ireland teenager Sophia Young had an outstanding World Cup senior debut.

The 18-year-old Methodist College student, who returns home to her A-Levels, made the final of the women’s double sculls alongside Alison Bergin.

Their Ireland team mates Zoe Hyde and Margaret Cremen took the bronze medal behind Romania and the Netherlands.

Young and Bergin, who won their heat and finished second in the semi-finals, were just beaten for fourth place by Poland but Young especially showed that she is one to watch in the future.

Last year she won three Irish titles in the single, double and quad sculls and was awarded Irish Junior Female Rower of the Year.

Her next exam is Maths on Wednesday.

"It's been a really exciting experience to race against such fast crews at Senior level," Young said.

"I really enjoyed having Alison there to take me through the process, I learned so much from her experience, she helped keep us on target by writing us each daily schedules every day.

"The whole thing has really motivated me for the future.

"It will be tough to go back into exams, but I have had my books with me all through the regatta so hopefully I'll be prepared when I get home.

"For now I am going home to focus on my exams so trying not to think too much about the next race, but I'm really looking forward to another exciting summer of racing."

In the Olympic boat classes, Ireland’s other medal was a bronze won my world single sculls champion Fiona Murtagh.

She finished behind Great Britain’s Lauren Henry.

There was also gold for the GB men’s four, silver for the men’s eight and bronze for the women’s eight.

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