BEIJING: Romanian Georgeta Andrunache is on the brink of history after she and partner Viorica Susanu won the women’s pair at the Beijing Olympic rowing competition yesterday.
The gold medal was a fifth one for Andrunache, bringing her level with rowing legends Steve Redgrave and her compatriot Elisabeta Lipa.
Andrunache also goes for Romania in the women’s eight today and another title there would put her out in front of the rest with six Olympic gold medals.
The pair were the reigning champions in this discipline and Andrunache had also won the title in Sydney with Doina Ignat.
“I’m very happy with the gold, it’s the third time I’ve won a medal in this event,” she said.
“Now my boyfriend will understand why I didn’t spend so much time with him last year.
“I hope I will win the gold again tomorrow. I want to dedicate this medal to my wedding in September.” If she does indeed win gold again today it will be the third time that she personally has won a women’s pair-eight double.
Romania beat the surprise Chinese pairing of Wu You and Gao Yulan into silver with Yuliya Bichyk and Natallia Helakh of Belarus in third.
In the men’s four Britain continued its domination of the discipline by claiming their third gold in a row.
Of the four only Steve Williams had been a member of the gold medal team in Athens but Tom James, Pete Reed and Andrew Triggs Hogg proved up to the task achieved by illustrious predecessors such as Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent.
Reed said the secret to their success was all down to German coach Jurgen Grobler.
“There were times through the season when we weren’t always looking so smooth,” he said. “The one consistency has been Jurgen Grobler, he knows how to train us to peak at the right time.” Australia, who had led up to the final 500m, finished second with France in third.
The most exciting race of the day was in the women’s double sculls where New Zealand twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell retained their title by the narrowest of margins.
They came back at Germans Annekatrin Thiele and Christiane Huth in the final stages to win by just 0.01sec with fast-finishing British pair Elise Laverick and Anna Bebington making up 3sec on the leaders to come home just 0.23sec down in the bronze medal position. The race was so close no-one new the result until it was announced. “It had been an awesome race, we were up against some awesome crews, whatever medal we had we would’ve been happy with,” said Georgina Evers-Swindell.
“It was a bonus to find out it was gold.” In the women’s single sculls favorite Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus failed to win a record third Olympic gold in the discipline as Bulgaria’s Rumyana Neykova took the title.
Karsten had not lost since 2005 and was Olympic champion in 1996 and 2000 but had to settle for bronze as American Michelle Guerette came through to claim silver.
Norway’s Olaf Tufte retained his Olympic title in the men’s single sculls race while there were also two gold for Australia.
David Crawshay and Scott Brennan won the men’s double sculls gold medal and world champions Duncan Free and Drew Ginn added the Olympic crown to their resumes in the men’s pair.
