Britain’s Matthew Pinsent won his fourth successive rowing gold medal in thrilling style yesterday when he led his British coxless fours to victory in a photo-finish against world champions Canada.
Pinsent, James Cracknell, Steve Williams and Ed Coode led over the first half of the race but were then passed by the smooth Canadians in the third section of the final at Schinias Rowing and Canoeing Centre
Incredibly, the British crew dug deep and overhauled their rivals in the last 500 meters and held on to win by just eight-hundreths of a second from the world champions.
The British boat was timed at 6min 06.98sec with Canada finishing in 6:07.06 and Italy winning the bronze in 6:10.41.
Pinsent, 33, who helped Steve Redgrave to his fifth gold in Sydney four years ago, has now won golds at the 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 Games. “It is really hard to get any perspective on what’s happened,” said Pinsent.
Cracknell, who was also part of Redgrave’s crew in Sydney said the win was especially sweet as they had lost to the Canadians in the world championships earlier in the season.
They also had to bring in Coode to replace Alex Partridge who was forced to withdraw after suffering a collapsed lung.
There was also an emotional gold medal triumph for New Zealand twins Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell who won their first Olympic gold in the women’s double sculls in 7:01.79. The world champions are now unbeaten since 2002. Germany’s Peggy Waleska and Britta Oppelt took silver with Britain’s Sarah Winckless and Elise Laverick winning bronze.
“It was a very fast race,” said Georgina. “We had a lot of pressure from Germany and Great Britain but we made our target.”
Norway’s Olaf Tufte added Olympic gold to his two world titles with victory in the men’s single sculls in a time 6:49.30.
Estonia’s Jueri Jansen took silver with Vaclav Chalupa of the Czech Republic winning bronze despite having led at the 500m mark.
“It was my day. I am just happy,” said Tufte. “Chalupa was leading the first 100m and after 400m I thought he would kill me. But then my power grew and he couldn’t follow me anymore.” Favorites Georgeta Damian and Viorica Susanu of Romania won the gold medal in the women’s pairs in 7:06.55 ahead of Britains world champions Katherine Grainger and Cath Bishop who won silver.
Yuliya Bichyk and Natallia Helekh were third. Drew Ginn and James Tomkins of Australia dominated the final of the men’s pairs to win gold in 6:30.76.
Croatian brothers Sinisa and Niksa Skelin took silver ahead of Donovan Cech and Ramon di Clemente of South Africa won the bronze.
Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski of Germany took gold in the women’s singles sculls after rowing a time of 7:18.12 to maintain her unbeaten record this season. Two-time Olympic gold medalist, Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus won the silver while Rumyana Neykova of Bulgaria, holder of the worlds best time from the 2002 World Championships in Seville, won bronze.
