YOUNG rowing sensation Lucy Glover received an early Christmas present in the shape of a significant award.

The 19-year-old sculler, who used to represent Warrington Rowing Club, won the Mark Lees Foundation Award as the most promising development rower at the GB Rowing Team awards alongside Sam Meijer.

Glover, a former Lymm High School student who now studies at Edinburgh University, picked up the award at the end of a superb year in which she won gold at the World Rowing Under 23s Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, in July.

Despite being much younger than her teammates, she stroked Great Britain to victory alongside teammates Saskia Budgett, Anna Thornton and Charlotte Hodgkins-Byrne as they beat Australia and Germany to the top prize.

Glover’s achievements in the blue and yellow vest of Warrington Rowing Club were also momentous in 2017 as she became the first person to wear the club’s colours in a final at the prestigious Henley Royal Regatta.

She competed alongside Budgett, Thornton and Kyra Edwards in the Princess Grace Challenge Cup final, but they lost out to a Dutch crew from Hollandia Roeiclub.

On the same stretch of water, Glover also won the George Innes Cup for elite single sculls at the Henley Women’s Regatta, despite still being eligible for the junior competition.