Drysdale finally wins Olympic gold

Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand, who has been crossing rowing finish lines first for almost a decade, finally did so at the Olympics Friday. Drysdale is a five-time world champion in the single sculls and has been a dominant force in the sport, but he finished fourth at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and was third in Beijing four years ago. Four of the top five competitors from the 2008 Olympics were back to challenge for the gold medal this time and Drysdale made sure he would not be denied this time. He got an early lead and powered his way along the 2,000-meter course in the time of 6:57.82. After finally guiding his boat to the shore, Drysdale fell exhausted onto the deck. Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic, who finished with the silver medal for the second straight Olympics, arrived to congratulate his rival only to find that Drysdale did not have the strength to get to his feet. So Synek dropped to his hands and knees to give Drysdale a hug. Synek finished second in 2008 to Norway's Olaf Tufte, who failed to make the finals this year. Britain's Alan Camptell, who was fifth in Beijing, won the bronze medal on Friday. New Zealand won two of the four rowing finals Friday with Eric Murray and Hamish Bond capturing the pairs event. They finished almost 5 seconds in front of Germain Chardin and Dorian Mortelette of France. Britain's George Nash and William Satch took the bronze. Anna Wakins and Katherine Grainer of Britain were the gold medal winners in the women's double sculls. It was the second gold in rowing for Britain at these Olympics. They held off Australians Kim Crow and Brooke Pratley while Magdalena Fularczyk and Julia Michalska of Poland were third. The team from Germany won the other final, that coming in the men's quadruple sculls. Karl Schulze, Phillipp Wende, Lauritz Schoof and Tim Grohmann were in the winning boat, which finished in front of the teams from Croatia and Australia.