World champion Canada now Olympic champion in Men's Eight

Members of the Canadian team row. (Photo credit: Xinhua)

(BEIJING, August 17) -- The world champion crew from Canada is now Olympic champion after winning the Men's Eight with a time of 5:23.89, staying in front of second-place Great Britain from start to finish. The British finished with a time of 5:25.11, just ahead of third-place United States, which finished in 5:25.34.

The Canadians broke a 35-year-old trend that has seen no reigning world champion in the Men's Eight collect Olympic gold. Their commanding seven second heat win over Poland on Monday, August 11, made them pre-race favorites to end the trend.

"That was one of the final things we talked about last night at our meeting," said Canadian rower Rutledge when asked about the 35-year-old Olympic drought. "We wanted to put two things to rest -- first was our performance in Athens, and second we wanted to be the first crew to win Olympic Gold whilst being world champions."

The crew from Great Britain was in second place throughout the race. The US crew passed the Netherlands at the 1500m mark to grab bronze.

Members of the Canadian team row. (Photo credit: Xinhua)

Men's Eight, final standings:

1. Canada -- 5:23.89

Kevin Light, Ben Rutledge, Andrew Byrnes, Jake Wetzel, Malcolm Howard, Dominic Seiterle, Adam Kreek, Kyle Hamilton, Brian Price

2. Great Britain --5:25.11

Alex Partridge, Tom Stallard, Tom Lucy, Richard Egington, Josh West, Alastair Heathcote, Matt Langridge, Colin Smith

3. United States -- 5:25.34

Beau Hoopman, Matt Schnobrich, Micah Boyd, Wyatt Allen, Daniel Walsh, Steven Coppola, Josh Inman, Bryan Volpenhein, Marcus Mc Elhenney

4. Netherlands -- 5:29.26

Meindert Klem, Rogier Blink, Olivier Siegelaar, Jozef Klaassen, David Kuiper, Mitchel Steenman, Olaf van Andel, Diederik Simon, Peter Wiersum

5. Poland-- 5:31.42

Sebastian Kosiorek, Michal Stawowski, Patryk Brzezinski, Slawomir Kruszkowski, Wojciech Gutorski, Marcin Brzezinski, Rafal Hejmej, Mikolaj Burda, Daniel Trojanowski

6. Australia -- 5:35.10

David Dennis, Samuel Loch, James Chapman, Tom Laurich, Jeremy Stevenson, James Tomkins, Sam Conrad, Stephen Stewart, Marty Rabjohns