Olympics: Pair's bronze after controversial start

Lightweights Peter Taylor and Storm Uru. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Peter Taylor and Storm Uru have secured New Zealand's first Olympic medal in a lightweight rowing boat with bronze but it came amid dramatic scenes at Dorney Lake.

In the double sculls, the British boat of Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter pulled out of the race within the permissible first 100m with a broken seat.

That meant a restart 11 minutes after the original start time. Farcical scenes ensued, with the Brits paddling to the side of the course and Purchase brandishing a screwdriver to try to fix the problem.

In the BBC commentary box, Sir Steven Redgrave was heard to utter "if it is not a breakage ... make sure it is" before the umpire assessed their case.

Mahe Drysdale used the same tactic during the 2010 world championships at Lake Karapiro when stickers slipped off his boat.

In last night's race, Denmark's Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist ended up taking gold in a bow-to-bow finish, taking it over Britain by 0.06s. The Brits were delirious afterwards, needing Redgrave's support on the platform as they wobbled across the pontoon.

Double scullers Uru and Taylor have taken New Zealand's overall medal tally to seven - three gold and four bronze. Five of those medals - three gold and two bronze - have come from rowing, by far New Zealand's best rowing haul at a Games. New Zealand is second on the rowing medal table behind Britain.

Until last night, New Zealand had never taken a medal in any lightweight event since the introduction of those disciplines to the Games in 1996.

Taylor and Uru were in contention to win up to the 1500m mark when the Danes and Brits pulled away. The Kiwis were down 2.1 seconds at the 500m mark, 1.5s at the 1000m and 1.7s at the 1500m.

The restart saw an enormous depletion of energy. The French protested but at the time of writing, it had not been upheld. There were two more protests from other federations. If a breakage had not been deemed to have occurred, the Brits could have been disqualified.

Taylor and Uru have earned just reward for their military-like discipline to stay under a combined weight of 140kg. How they must have eyed the buffet table which their heavyweight rowers were free to tuck into at the media open day with its cuts of beef and chocolate self-sauce pudding. Now they can deservedly hoe in.

Emma Twigg came fourth in the women's single sculls final behind the Czech winner Mirka Knapkova last night.

Twigg faced a formidable task in the women's single sculls against defending world champion Knapkova who dominated the race over Denmark's Fie Udby Erichsen who took silver and Australian Kim Crow with bronze. Twigg barely had a chance to attack the race with Knapkova shooting to a two-and-a-half length lead by the 500m mark.

Britain beat Australia in the coxless four final, justifying the move by Andrew Triggs Hodge and Peter Reed to move from the men's pair where they had been beaten 14 consecutive times by New Zealanders Eric Murray and Hamish Bond.

The New Zealand women's lightweight double scullers finished third in their B final; the men's coxless four were fifth in theirs.