ZOE LEE and Jess Eddie helped Britain’s women’s eight secure a dramatic last-gasp success in the final of the European Rowing Championships in Germany.

The North-East duo teamed up with Katie Greves, Melanie Wilson, Frances Houghton, Polly Swann, Olivia Carnegie Brown, Karen Bennett and cox Zoe de Toledo to form a new-look eight, and the crew powered past their Dutch rivals in the final ten metres of today’s race to claim gold.

The victory lays down a significant marker ahead of this summer’s Olympics, with Richmond’s Lee and Durham’s Eddie now extremely likely to be part of the crew that competes in Rio.

The British eight trailed the Dutch by almost a boat length at the three-quarter stage, but timed their finish to perfection as they powered through to win by four tenths of a second.

“Everyone did their job and stayed calm, even though we were a length down,” said Lee. “It’s a privilege to row with these women.”

Lee, who has been combining her rowing career with successfully studying for a PhD at King’s College, was the stroke responsible for timing the late surge, and the 30-year-old could not have done a better job as the British boat claimed victory on the line.

“I think Zoe did an amazing job of calling that race,” said her team-mate Wilson.  “I knew we were down, but we were never discouraged that it was something we couldn’t overcome. The Netherlands won the World Cup in Varese recently, so to beat them is a massive confidence boost.”

Eddie is hoping to compete in her third Olympics this summer, and the Durham ARC member dedicated yesterday’s gold medal to GB coach Ron Needs, who died recently.

“That was for Ron,” she said. “He was a massive advocate of women’s rowing and we are proud to have produced that kind of performance for him – I am sure he will be up there critiquing it and enjoying it.”

It was not such a good weekend for reigning Olympic lightweight double champion Kat Copeland, with the Stokesley rower failing to qualify for the European final as she could only finish fourth in Saturday’s semi-final along with partner Charlotte Taylor.

The duo were five seconds down on their Polish competition at the halfway stage of the race, and while they began to battle back in the closing stages, they left things too late as they eventually finished behind Poland, Romania and Denmark. A second-place finish in today’s B final brought a disappointing weekend to an end.

“Off the back of a hard training camp, they haven’t bounced back as high as we would have liked,” conceded coach Paul Reedy. “But we have had some tight racing here, which is good.”

Yarm’s Tina Stiller helped the women’s quadruple scull finish fourth in their final – the quartet will attempt to qualify for Rio at this summer’s final qualification regatta – while Cresswell’s Jamie Kirkwood narrowly missed out on a medal as he finished fourth in the lightweight men’s single scull.

In total, Britain won four gold medals, with the women’s pair of Helen Glover and Heather Stanning, the men’s four of Alex Gregory, Mo Sbihi, George Nash and Constantine Louloudis and the lightweight men’s pair of Sam Scrimgeour and Joel Cassells all triumphing.