South Africa’s rowing team of Sizwe Ndlovu, Matthew Brittain, John Smith and James Thompson secured the country’s third gold medal of the London Olympic Games, finishing first in the men’s lightweight four final on Thursday 2 August.
 
The South Africans started conservatively, and were sitting in third position at the 500 metres mark before dropping back to fourth position at the 1 500m mark.
 
Over the last 500m stretch, however, they fought back and passed hosts Great Britain, Australia and Denmark to clinch gold in six minutes, 02.84 seconds (6:02.84).
 
Britain finished just 0.25 seconds behind South Africa to claim the silver medal with Denmark bagging bronze a further 0.07 seconds behind. South Africa currently lies in 8th position in the medal table.