The result vindicated the gamble taken by head coach Jürgen Gröbler to make the eight, rather than the four which won gold at the London 2012 Games, this season's priority.

All the big hitters of Britain's sweep rowing team, including double Olympic champions Andrew Triggs Hodge and Pete Reed, were in the boat which earned a landmark result despite failing to win a medal at the last World Cup before the Championships.

"The last few years we've felt like the bridesmaid but never the bride but today that all changed," said cox Phelan Hill, who was in the boat that finished third at London 2012.

Dan Ritchie, Tom Ransley, Alex Gregory - who also earned Olympic gold last year in the four - Reed, Moe Sbihi, Triggs Hodge, George Nash, Will Satch and Hill recorded a winning time of 5min 30.35sec, with Germany second in 5:30.89 and the United States third in 5:33.92.

Britain's men's eight savour a historic victory at the Rowing World Championships in South Korea

It was Britain's second gold following the win achieved in the women's pair by Helen Glover and Polly Swann yesterday.

"The men's eight has been an exciting project, with its challenges for our top guns, and this came together in the last six weeks under Jürgen Gröbler's excellent coaching," Sir David Tanner, performance director of the British rowing team, said.

"There was an exceptional spread of medal winning countries, here in Chungju, which is great for our sport and we now have a strong platform to build towards Olympic and Paralympic qualification in two years' time on the Road to Rio."

Reed praised the course and spoke of his desire to dedicate the win to Acer Nethercott, the British Beijing 2008 Olympic silver medal winning cox who died earlier this year after battling brain cancer.

"It was an amazing race," he said.

"We are part of history now in the British eight.

"Not just the result but the performance backed up the result and the history.

"It was a pleasure and privilege to be part of it.

"The venue here is also magical.

"It looks like an Olympics.

"You can see that people really care here.

"Finally, I have thought a lot about Acer recently.

"He was a good friend and I know he would have wanted us to be here and I am glad that we are bringing back a gold medal which I think we should dedicate to him."

Triggs Hodge added: "Today was just about performing what we know we could do.

"We had a glimmer of that in the heats.

"Also, we have those memories of Lucerne and even Dorney in our minds.

"They weren't very good rows.

"We knew we had to be good to beat that German eight.

"We knew that we they wouldn't lie down at let us take their event."

Ondřej Synek is hoisted high after his single sculls win by silver medallist Ángel Fournier Rodríguez (left) and bronze medallist Marcel Hacker

Defending world and Olympic single sculls champion Mahé Drysdale of New Zealand made a shock exit in the discipline's quarterfinals ahead of a final won by the Czech Republic's former world champion Ondřej Synek, who took gold in 6:45.24.

He was followed by Ángel Fournier Rodríguez of Cuba and Marcel Hacker of Germany in second and third place respectively, with Britain's Olympic bronze medallist Alan Campbell in fourth.

Gold in the women's eight went to the Olympic champions, the United States, who clocked 6:02.14 to finish almost five seconds clear of Romania, with Canada taking bronze in 6:09.34.

The men's four title went to the Netherlands in 6:13.95, with Australia taking silver in 6:14.58 and bronze going to the US in 6:15.46.

Italy added another gold to those won by the men's coxed pair and the lightweight men's eight as their women's crew in the lightweight double sculls - Laura Milani and Elisabetta Sancassani - earned victory over the US, with bronze going to Germany.

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