NOTTINGHAM Rowing Club's U16s scorched to three prestigious national titles.

They picked up two gold medals at the National Sculling Head at Eton – the venue for the 2012 Olympics – and then added another at the Schools Head rowing event on the Tideway over the Boat Race course.

The J16 Boys – Ed Fisher, George Greenfield, Dominic Harrison and Tom Selby dominated at the Oarsport National Junior Sculling Head at Dorney Lake.

Racing in a new high-performance quadruple sculling boat, the Nottingham crew outshone 16 other crews on a windy day to take gold, recording a time which would have won the J17 category.

In a 3x1, 800m stage race, the quad scullers rowed a blistering first leg, leaving a yawning gap in the process behind them.

After the first turn, they overtook four crews on the second leg into a stiff headwind.

To complete the race, the final leg in the tail wind went from strength-to-strength, building up to a flying inward row at 35 strokes per minute.

Their eight-second victory over Westminster School was achieved against some considerably heavier crews, drawing on much larger school squads in many cases.

In the girls' event, Holly Oughton, Sarah Padbury, Katie Bartlett and stroke Mary Wilson stamped their authority on the field in the J16 Womens' quad sculling event over the same course, winning by a margin of 14 seconds over Tideway Scullers in a field of 18 crews.

After a measured row on the first leg, they moved out to a progressively commanding lead in the following two legs. The winning J16 time would have placed them second in the older J17 category, too, and third overall, further underlining work by squad coach Ben Dobbs.

The hat-trick of wins was completed by the club's J16 Girls at the Schools' Eights Head at London Tideway.

They triumphed in a time of 20min 34secs, two seconds ahead of last year's winners, Headington School in a race held over the 4.5 miles championship course between Mortlake and Putney.

Coach Ben Dobbs said: "I don't think I've ever seen a crew put that much grit and determination into a race to produce a result against the odds.

"I can't commend them highly enough."