5
BEIJING — The men's lightweight four made it three rowing finals and three medals for Canada at the Olympic regatta.
The lightweight four won Canada's second bronze medal on Sunday at Shunyi Rowing-Canoeing Park, finishing behind the gold medallist from Denmark, who are the defending Olympic champions, and the surprising Poles, who won silver.
The boat is coached by Bent Jensen, who is suffering from pancreatic cancer and receiving chemotherapy treatment while here in Beijing. His last treatment was on Tuesday.
"With him being sick, I think we felt it was really important [to win a medal]," crew member Liam Parsons said.
Left to right, Liam Parsons, Mike Lewis, Jon Beare and Iain Brambell. (Darren Whiteside/Reuters)
Related Articles
The crew of Jon Beare, Iain Brambell, Mike Lewis and Parsons was expected to contend, but looked in trouble at the three-quarters mark, when the boat was fourth and seemed to be fading. But the Canadians rallied and nearly caught Poland for silver. Canada had been second halfway through the race.
"We had to put everything out there and obviously we started with everything we could in the first 500 [metres] to get ourselves in the race," Brambell said.
Earlier on Sunday, women's lightweight double of Melanie Kok and Tracy Cameron won bronze medal in dramatic fashion, finishing four one-thousandths of a second in front of a German crew. On Saturday, David Calder and Scott Frandsen won silver in the men's pair.
