British pair ‘catch a crab’ in final five strokes to blow golden shot

“I don’t want to ever watch that back,” said Tom George after he and Ollie Wynne-Griffith had missed out on gold in the men’s pair by less than half a second. “We didn’t have the perfect last five strokes.”

This was a polite way of saying that the British pair caught a crab on their third-last stroke. Not a full-on crab, because that does not really happen at this level of rowing, but a semi-crab. In other words, they lost their balance and plunged their oars deep into the water, like a golfer taking too big a divot.

Did it make a difference to the result? Probably not, as the Croatian brothers, Martin and Valent Sinkovic, were already closing in quickly, having been around a length behind with 350 metres to go. But it certainly put paid to any lingering chances of gold.

On commentary, such experienced observers as James Cracknell and Moe Sbihi – owners of three Olympic golds between them – had sounded confident at the 1650-metre mark. But the lactic acid was clearly building in George and Wynne-Griffith, who had made a slow start in their semi-final but flew out of the blocks here.

“There wasn’t anything else we could’ve done,” said Wynne-Griffith afterwards. “In the last two World Championship finals we’ve made the opposite mistake and not put ourselves in a position where we could win in the first half, and then chased back hard to save a medal.

“We learned from those two races. We took a risk in the first half. We wanted to grab it by the scruff of the neck. Unfortunately we came up three or four strokes short. But that’s how we wanted to race it. We wanted to race for a gold medal and put ourselves out there.”

The Sinkovic brothers sang “We’re Number One” as they came into the mixed zone. They are rowing royalty, having now backed up a silver medal at London 2012 with golds at the last three Olympic regattas. Their strategy was always to hang back until the final stages, and they timed their push to perfection.

“The Olympics is a pressure cooker,” said George, who first met Wynne-Griffith when they played rugby against each other as schoolboys. “It hurts a lot now to not get it in the last three strokes but we still got a silver medal.”

These two men both rowed in the bronze medal-winning eight at Tokyo, and then chose to take a year out and study at Cambridge, where they did post-graduate degrees at Peterhouse College while training for the Boat Race. They are as close-knit a unit as you will find – with the possible exception of a pair of siblings like the Sinkovic brothers.

“This has been a hell of a journey for us,” said George. “After Tokyo, when we rolled into Cambridge, if you’d told us we’d win a medal in the pair and be a dominant part of that field we wouldn’t have believed you after Tokyo. We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved. Doing it with your best mate is pretty special.”

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