Great Britain will be in the medal hunt on the final day of the third and last World Cup of the year in Lucerne, Switzerland, on Sunday after qualifying 11 of their 12 Olympic-class boats for finals.

However, while their retention of the overall World Cup series is assured, helped by winning nine golds in Spain in the first regatta, British crews were given a sign of how tough it will be to win medals in a series of tense semi-finals on the Rotsee course.

At least Katherine Grainger cruised through in the single scull. As she had in her heat on Friday, the Scot assured herself of qualification for the final in the first dozen strokes. Within 500 metres she had eased out to a lead of one length over second place and two lengths ahead of the rest of the field. Even though she allowed the Chinese sculler through, Grainger was sculling well within herself and will be hoping to earn a second World Cup title of this season.

The lightweight women’s double of Hester Goodsell and Sophie Hosking are also eyeing up title No 2, having won in the Munich World Cup last month. For the second race in a row at Lucerne, they led all the way down the course, qualifying in first place from their semi-final.

The lightweight men’s double had a tougher semi-final as their race came into the final 200 yards with five boats still in contention for the three qualifying places. Britain had led in the middle kilometre, but they were pipped to the win by seven hundredths of a second.

At least they had the luxury of qualifying by one and a half seconds, the heavyweight men’s double scraped into their final in third place by one quarter of a second from the fast-finishing Swiss. As with the men’s pair, the double have found the going tougher as the season has gone on and New Zealand will be the crew to beat.

The lightweight four also finished on the right side of the field in their semi-final. Little more than a second covered the first four boats, with Great Britain coming through from fourth place to snatch the final qualifying place from Japan in the last ten strokes.

That was nothing compared with the repechage in the men’s eight. Four boats from six would go through to the final and Britain needed a fast finish to ensure they came third, six tenths of a second ahead of Italy, who knocked the United States out by the width of a coat of varnish.

The women’s double scull of Anna Bebington and Ro Bradbury failed to qualify from their repechage. With only two going through to the final, Italy and New Zealand built up a five-second gap on the British pair with 500 metres to row and it was prudent to give in and come third rather than jeopardise Bradbury’s chances in the quad final today with a draining and possibly fruitless sprint finish.

Explore More Sport

• Athletics

• Boxing

• Cycling

• Sailing

• US Sport