THREE county oarswomen beat an Olympic gold medallist to make the podium at the British Rowing Championships in Nottingham.

World U23 finalist Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne from St Weonards took silver in the women's double sculls ahead of Olympic champion Kat Copeland, before landing bronze by just 0.02 seconds from the London 2012 star in the quadruple sculls, alongside her world junior medal sister Charlotte.

And taking silver in the quads event was Louise Hart from Ross-on-Wye, whose lightweight crew finished just two seconds down on the boat of Olympic pair champions Helen Glover and Heather Stanning.

A headwind gusting at up to 40mph reduced day two's racing to a 1750m time-trial.

Hart said: "We knew we'd put down a really good race and couldn't have done any more, but we didn't know it was quite that good. It's a fantastic result."

Her Wallingford-based boat finished just 2.7 seconds down on the quad scull of the Olympic and world women's champion pair.

Even more impressively, Hart's crew were giving away at least two stone a seat to their major rivals into the brutal headwind, and comfortably landed the lightweight plaque as well as silver overall.

The Hodgkins-Byrne sisters' Gloucester-based crew, which included double Olympic finalist Beth Rodford, took third six seconds back on Hart's boat by a fraction from Olympic champion Copeland's Tees boat.

In a six-boat final, Hereford Rowing Club product Mathilda, 19, had earlier also taken doubles silver with Rodford from Copeland and GB crew-mate Tina Stiller, with Kiwi world singles champion Emma Twigg, on a year's university course in the UK, taking gold with London 2012 Olympian Mel Wilson.

Ross RC product Morgan Baynham-Williams steered Leander's B crew to fifth in the men's 8s.

British silver capped a fantastic run of regatta success for Monmouth RC product Hart, dating back to the British Universities Championships in May when she took championship double sculls gold with Loughborough University partner Katie Bartlett on the same Nottingham course.

At Henley Women's Regatta in June, she took the senior lightweight singles title with final victory by just under two lengths, following on from her win in the senior open singles a year earlier.

Racing for England in the Home Countries Regatta in Cork in July, she helped her women's quadruple scull beat Wales into second by a length.

And in August, as part of the GB team at the European Universities Games in Rotterdam, she raced to women's lightweight singles bronze just 2L back on Switzerland's experienced senior world championships sculler in gold.