In both cases the powerful British team, coached by Magdeburg-born Jürgen Grőbler, came out on top.

That last race, the blue riband event, the men’s eight, saw the British boat lead for the bulk of the race. 

However, they were never altogether in the clear and their margin over both the German crew in second place and the Netherlands in third was less than two seconds. 

Their winning time: 5min 29.63sec.

Grőbler and his coaching team also had silver to celebrate in the equivalent women’s race, won comfortably by the United States eight that has dominated the event for an extended period.

The Romanian women finished fast to snatch bronze ahead of New Zealand in fourth spot.

And so a regatta which featured a wide range of weather conditions and a couple of postponements to keep organisers on their toes concluded with Britain still on top of the medals table, just as they had been at London 2012.

If the final tally of three gold and two silver medals over the 14 events was well down on Britain's remarkable nine-medal haul at their home Games four years ago, this was still an awesome performance which should ensure that their allocation of National Lottery-sourced funding remains high for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic cycle.

Germany were actually tied for second place in the table on two gold medals and one silver with New Zealand.

The top five were rounded out by Australia with one gold and two silvers and The Netherlands, one medal of all three colours.

All told, 21 nations won rowing medals at Rio 2016, versus 18 at London 2012.

One feature of Rio 2016 was the progress made by east European nations, with Poland. Croatia and Lithuania each winning two medals.

Earlier, the single scull finals had produced two extraordinary but contrasting races and two antipodean victories.

In the men’s event, Mahe Drysdale secured New Zealand’s second rowing gold medal of the Games.

The race between him and the tenacious and unlucky silver medallist, Damir Martin of Croatia, was so tight that both men were awarded the same time – an Olympic record 6:41.34.

The women’s race was a triumph for Australia’s Kimberley Brennan, who was always in control, even though the America's Genevra Stone made up some of the deficit in the final quarter.

The winning time for Brennan - who was awarded her medal by John Coates, Australia’s International Olympic Committeevice-president, was 7:21.54.