Rowers lead weekend medal rush

Beijing - The medals kept coming fast and furious for Canada at the Beijing Olympics on Sunday, as the country's athletes hit the podium multiple times for a second straight day.
Rowers accounted for three medals, with the men's eight crew claiming gold in a race they led start-to-finish - four years after posting a disappointing fifth-place finish as the favourites in Athens.
"For me, it's not about reconciling, it's about winning," said rower Kyle Hamilton. "We win the gold medal, I'm speechless. I can't very well say it's the happiest day of my life because I've got married between Athens and now. This is a close second."
The lightweight women's double and the lightweight men's four each earned bronze, while swimmer Ryan Cochrane started the day with a third-place finish in the gruelling men's 1,500-metre freestyle race.

Up to seven medals
Coming on the heels of a gold, silver and bronze effort Saturday, Canada is now up to seven medals overall and is rapidly climbing up the standings after spending the opening week of the Games looking up at sporting minnows like Kyrgyzstan and Togo.
Canada now sits alone in 17th place in the overall medal count. The U.S. leads with 65 medals (19 gold, 21 silver, 25 bronze), with the Chinese close behind at 61 (35-13-13 bronze). Great Britain's 25 medals (11-6-8) round out the top three.
Sunday's tally would have been even higher had near-misses by the women's eight crew, less than a second behind bronze-medallist Romania; wrestler Martine Dugrenier, who lost to American Randi Miller in the dying seconds of the bronze-medal match; and sailor Chris Cook, who was fifth in Finn class, turned out a bit differently.

Baumann happy
"It's pleasing to see," said Alex Baumann, who heads up Canada's Road to Excellence program. "Hopefully (there are) more to come with canoeing starting and trampoline. Obviously, we're hoping there is a good momentum for more medals in the next week."
Blythe Hartley of North Vancouver, B.C., also missed a medal by the slimmest of margins, placing fourth in the women's three-metre springboard - the final competition of her career.
"I've never dove being so emotional," said the 26-year-old diving star. "I was proud of what I was able to achieve today.
"I'm ending my career doing my personal best at the Olympic Games and you couldn't ask for much more than that."
The men's eight crew, which came in as the defending world champion, delivered Canada's second gold of the Games and erased the bitter memories from Athens four years ago.
That crew went in as double world champions but finished a disastrous fifth.
"I've been thinking about it ever since," said Hamilton. "I never thought I'd get the opportunity to be a favourite in an Olympics again.
"Just to come in as a favourite is an amazing experience. To do it twice is just amazing and to win ... I can't say anymore."
This one was never in doubt, as they won in five minutes 23.89 seconds. Britain took silver in 5:25.11 while the United States won bronze in 5:25.34.
"I knew that we had won it, there was nobody coming back at that point," coxswain Brian Price said of raising his arms near the finish line. "I kept telling them to keep on cranking."
The eight comprises Hamilton of Richmond, B.C., Adam Kreek of London, Ont., Dominic Seiterle and Malcolm Howard of Victoria, Jake Wetzel of Saskatoon, Andrew Byrnes of Toronto, Ben Rutledge of Cranbrook, B.C., Kevin Light of Sidney, B.C., and Price of Belleville, Ont.
Earlier at the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park, Melanie Kok of St. Catharines, Ont., and Tracy Cameron of Shubenacadie, N.S., won bronze in 6:56.68, holding off the Germans for third by 0.04 seconds.
"I thought we had it," said Cameron. "When we looked over I could see that our bow ball was definitely in front of the Germans. It was just making sure the judges were with us."
Just 40 minutes later, the crew of Iain Brambell of Victoria, Jon Beare of Toronto, Mike Lewis of Victoria and Liam Parsons of Thunder Bay, Ont., posted a time of 5:50.09 to finish third.
They used a late surge to solidify a claim on a medal, and almost moved into second place in the final leg. They finished just back of Poland, which took silver in 5:49.39.
"Coming into the last 500 we seemed to get our rhythm and Iain said 'Go for it,' we committed everything we had and went," said Parsons. "We knew it was tight, we really had no idea where we were when we started that sprint.
"It was exhausting. There wasn't anything left in the end."
It's been an emotional week for the four, whose coach Bent Jensen is battling pancreatic cancer. He came to the Games to lead his crew while getting chemotherapy treatments from the team doctor.
Cochrane got the good vibes going Sunday by winning the country's first Olympic swimming medal since the 2000 Games.
The tall, lean 19-year-old from Victoria clocked 14 minutes 42.69 seconds and had to hold off Russia's Yuriy Prilukov, who finished about half a second behind.
The last Canadian swimmer to win an Olympic medal was Curtis Myden, who finished third in the 400 individual medley.

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