Team GB’s rowers defied a historically bad winter of British weather to top the medal table at the European Championships.

Record rainfall has battered British Rowing’s state-of-the-art Caversham base and left it flooded for two months.

It forced rowers to dig deep and coaches to adapt their methods - seemingly to good effect as the GB Rowing Team cleaned up at the Euros in Szeged, Hungary. They won eight golds, one silver and a bronze to top the medal standings.

“We could still get the miles in but it’s been exceptionally disrupted and really awkward,” said Australian Andrew Randell, head coach of the GB women's squad and used to slightly different conditions down under. “We were able to get away on a camp for two weeks but I don’t know what we’d have done without that.

“I don’t know how anyone survives the winter in the UK. The girls have got to go out wearing seven layers, they do a lap, they take a layer off. I’m amazed they can train under four layers of clothing.

“The constant grind in the cold has got to have an impact and it makes our athletes very mentally tough. Maybe I'm just soft!"

No longer could coaches cycle down the towpath to shout advice and encouragement at crews. Non-ambulant Paralympic athletes even had to be lifted a long distance onto the submerged pontoon.

“We like to think of ourselves as problem solvers,” said Paralympic head coach Nick Baker. “We could still get work done, some of my athletes just needed an extra lift to get there.”

One standout result in Szeged came from double Olympic champion Helen Glover and the women’s four.

Glover won her first major title since returning to rowing, laying down a fearsome marker with less than 100 days to go until Paris 2024 where she hopes to become the first British mum-of-three to win an Olympic medal.

The 37-year-old combined with new partner Esme Booth, the returning Sam Redgrave and stalwart Rebecca Shorten to deliver a dominant victory.

“We’ve been working towards this combination for two years,” said Randell, whose athletes are some of over 1,000 on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world ’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support

“I think we’ve found the best mix of power, technique and fitness that we’ve got. It’s going to be a very difficult four to beat this summer.”

Glover said: "Gold was definitely what we were after but it was also the most composed I've ever felt in a race.

"I've got a lot of confidence in our crew and I had this sense that it was still a learning progress and even mid-race I thought, ‘this is interesting in terms of the big picture.’”

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