South Africa’s rowing team of Sizwe Ndlovu, Matthew Brittain, John Smith and James Thompson secured the country’s third gold medal of the London Olympic Games, finishing first in the men’s lightweight four final on Thursday (02/08/2012) afternoon
The South Africans started conservatively, going through the 500m mark in third place, and dropped back to fourth by the 1 500m mark.
Over the last 500m stretch, however, they fought back and passed hosts Great Britain, Australia and Denmark to clinch gold in six minutes, 02.84 seconds (6:02.84).
Britain secured silver, 0.25 seconds behind the SA quartet, with Denmark bagging bronze a further 0.07 seconds behind.
The SA rowing team’s medal adds to golds secured earlier in the week by swimmers Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos. - Sapa
