KEY POINTS:
A shattered George Bridgewater may have rowed his last race for New Zealand after he and Nathan Twaddle won bronze in the Olympic coxless pair final yesterday.
The New Zealanders had been fancied to press Australian defending champions Drew Ginn and Duncan Free all the way.
But in
the end, Australia's toughest challenge came from Canadians Scott Frandsen and David Calder.
The Aussies hung on to win by 2.11s in 6 m 37.44s, with New Zealand third in 6m 44.19s.
Bridgewater, one of the stars of New Zealand's elite squad, is off to Oxford University next year and he admitted that might have been his last row in a black singlet.
Asked if it was his last row with Twaddle, his partner of the last five years, he said: "I don't know. I haven't even decided whether I'm going to row for New Zealand again.
"I"ll make that decision in a year's time but there's a lot of things I want to do and if I come back again definitely, it would have to be for gold."
Bridgewater, 25, admitted winning bronze was tough to take, adding that even silver would have been less than he had yearned for.
The problems came in the first half of the race, when they lost contact with Australia and Canada. They were almost 6s behind the other two at the 1000m mark.
"When you're that far back, because you're facing backwards, if you are not in contact, it's bloody hard to know how fast you're going.
"It felt good and efficient but we just got annihilated in that first 1000," Bridgewater said.
The 31-year-old Twaddle, who finished fourth in the Athens Olympic final with Bridgewater and who won the world title the following year, said the outcome rammed home how hard it was to turn strong world championship form into Olympic success.
Twaddle said that it became apparent as Australia and Canada eased clear that they had stored up more speed than New Zealand could muster.
"It's disappointing in that the two crews we thought we could compete with have stepped up and we didn't manage to do the same," Twaddle said.
"We still gave it everything and the sun still comes up tomorrow - although probably a bit later in the morning."
No other crew fired a shot as Ginn and Free, and Calder and Frandsen dominated the race from the 2000m start.
