Rowing:Great Britain's lightweight men's four won a silver medal after being pipped to the line by new Olympic champions South Africa in a sensational final. In a thrilling sprint for the line, the British crew of Richard and Peter Chambers, the brothers from Coleraine in Co Derry, Rob Williams and Chris Bartley edged 2008 champions Denmark into bronze.
The lightweight men’s four is one of the tightest events in the regatta but Britain came into the final confident of gold following their success at the Munich World Cup in July. They made a slow start as Denmark set the early pace but they stormed back into contention with a strong third 500 metres to set up a four-way sprint for the line.
Denmark were reeled in and, with 100 metres remaining, it appeared as if Britain had enough to snatch the gold. But South Africa clinched the victory with the final stroke of the two kilometre race in a time of six minutes 2.84 seconds. The top three crews were separated by just three 10ths of a second.
“That was brutal, really, really brutal,” Peter Chambers said afterwards. “We were just fighting and fighting just to get ourselves back in contention and we did a cracking job. To even get the silver was impressive from where we came from.
“We struggled to keep to the pace of the three crews on the left-hand side in the first quarter of the race but we just dug our heels in and fought really hard.”
Britain have now won three medals at the Olympic rowing regatta following yesterday’s gold for Helen Glover and Heather Stanning and bronze for the men’s eight.
Earlier at Eton Dorney, New Zealand’s Nathan Cohen and Joseph Sullivan won Olympic gold in the men’s double sculls, with the British crew finishing in fifth. World champions Cohen and Sullivan won in six minutes 31.67 seconds ahead of Italy and the Slovenian crew who were looking to reclaim the Olympic title they won 12 years ago in Sydney.
Britain’s Bill Lucas and Sam Townsend made a promising start, leading the field after 250 metres, and they were in medal contention heading into the second half of the race. But New Zealand and Italy produced strong finishes to overhaul Slovenia and row Britain out of the medals.