No fewer than five blues featured on the medal podium of the men’s eight final at the World Rowing Championships at Eton. Bernd Heidicker, Sebastian Schulte and Thorsten Engelmann - all Cambridge - were part of the victorious German crew whilst Paul Daniels and Chris Liwski, of Oxford, were part of America’s bronze medal line-up.

The five were amongst many Blues who competed at last week’s event watched by more than 40,000 people. Their presence underlined the quality of The Boat Race which next year will be sponsored once again by Xchanging.

Germany’s gold was the final medal of the 2006 World Rowing Championships. They took it with a classy display in the final of the men’s eights.

The German crew were victorious in a fast time of 5:21.85, 1.44 seconds ahead of second-placed Italy who added a silver medal to the gold their lightweight eight won on Saturday (August 26).

Italy sat in second place for the first 1,000m of the race, but were overhauled by both the USA and Australia in the third 500m.

However they were not content to stay in fourth place, and put in a strong push to bring themselves back into contention in the closing stages. A sprint for the line gave them the edge over the USA, who in turn pushed Australia into fourth.

Great Britain’s famous sprint finish, which brought them safely through the semi-final, was not enough to give the home team a last medal and they finished fifth ahead of Poland. The British crew was stroked by former Cambridge President Tom Stallard and also featured Josh and Kieran West (no relation) who have both competed in The Boat Race for Cambridge.