Great Britain’s Peter Chambers and Kieren Emery won gold in the lightweight men’s pair at the World Championships in Bled, Slovenia yesterday.

Chambers, from Oxford Brookes University BC, and Emery, from the Leander Club at Henley, produced a superb second half of their final to power away from the field and take gold.

And there were silver medals for Helen Glover and Heather Stanning in the women’s pair and for the men’s eight on a strong day for Britain.

World under-23 champions Chambers and Emery were third at halfway, with New Zealand’s Graham Oberlin-Brown and James Lassche leading, but recorded the fastest split times over the last two 500m sectors to win it.

Italy’s Luca De Maria and Armando Dell’Aquila were second in the non-Olympic class, with Germans Bastian Seibt and Lars Wichert taking bronze as the Kiwi pair faded.

Glover and Stanning, by contrast, led almost from start to finish and held an advantage of a third of a second at the 1,500m mark.

But they were beaten at the last by New Zealand’s Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown, who won gold by 0.08 seconds. Australia’s Sarah Tait and Kate Hornsey were almost six seconds further back in third.

The men’s eight, stroked by Dan Ritchie and featuring only Henley’s Alex Partridge from the boat which won silver in the Beijing Olympics, were fourth at halfway, but timed their run to grab second place behind Germany. Canada were third.

Debbie Flood and Annabel Vernon, from the Leander Club at Henley, were part of Britain’s women’s quadruple sculls crew which qualified their boat for London 2012 by winning their B final.

Mel Wilson and Beth Rodford completed the line-up.