Rio de Janeiro: Croatian brothers Martin and Valent Sinkovic secured a gold medal in the men’s double sculls final in the Olympic rowing regatta on Thursday, in a tough duel that saw them battling Lithuania’s boat neck-and-neck for much of the race.
After taking an early lead and holding Lithuania’s Mindaugas Griskonis and Saulius Ritter to the second-place spot through the 1000-meter mark, Croatia slipped back into second place in the third-quarter.
Lithuanian fans in the stands at Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon cheered wildly as the two boats battled for gold through the final half of the race.
Ultimately, Croatia won in a time of 6:50.28, Lithuania claimed silver in 6:51.39 and Norway took bronze.
Meanwhile, Germany took the gold medal in the men’s quadruple sculls in the Olympic rowing regatta on Thursday, defending the title they won at London 2012.
Australia took silver and Estonia bronze.
The German crew of Philip Wende, Lauritz Schoof, Karl Schulze and Hans Gruhne led from the start on the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon. They finished in 6 minutes 6.81 seconds, 1.15 seconds ahead of the Australians.
The Australian boat crewed by Karsten Forsterling, Alexander Belonogoff, Cameron Girdlestone, James McCrae lagged until the halfway point when they moved up to challenge the Germans.
Forty-year-old Briton Katherine Grainger, however, had to settle for a fourth silver in five Olympics in agonising fashion as Poland won the women’s double sculls gold on Thursday.
Grainger and her partner Victoria Thornley led for the majority of the race, but were pipped by Natalia Madaj and Magdalena Fularczyk-Kozlowska by just under a second to claim Poland’s first goal of the Games.
Lithuania took the bronze in third.
Grainger finally landed gold on home soil in London four years ago after winning silver in Sydney, Athens and Beijing.
