Devastated Zac Purchase has to settle for Olympic silver in dramatic rowing final

12:31pm Saturday 4th August 2012 in News By James Reece

ZAC Purchase was denied a second consecutive Olympic gold medal in a dramatic men's lightweight double sculls final.

The 26-year-old former King's School Worcester pupil and Mark Hunter had to be content with silver in front of their home crowd at London 2012 after their success at Beijing four years ago.

The race had to be restarted after Purchase encountered problems with his seat in their boat early on and stopped racing.

However, the Great Britain pair then opened strongly and looked to be on course for gold only for a tremendous fightback from the Danish duo who passed them late on to seize the title.

A tearful Purchase said afterwards: "The crowd was amazing - but I just wish we had been a bit quicker for everyone."

Comments(2)

Casmal says...
12:40pm Sun 5 Aug 12

My heart goes out to Zac and his partner, as I can understand their disappointment. It must be devastating going through years of tortuous training, making personal sacrifices, with the one aim of bettering your previous performance and getting gold, to lost out at the last moment and by such a small margin.

They had the added difficulty of not only a broken seat, which must have not only been a shock, but will also have disrupted their focus - plus the anguish of waiting for the result of an appeal by the French, in which they were exonerated, when the officials declared a fair race due to genuine breakage.

I hope that they are able to overcome their disappintment and be proud of their extraordinary achievement. Well done, Zac and Mark, we are proud of you.

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TmP says...
2:07pm Sun 5 Aug 12

I must agree with longpete regarding the cyclist falling off it certainly tarnished Hoy's gold it is apparently par for the course ! I was disappointed by the rider saying this, definitely not sporting.
Shame for Zac and Mark however a silver is excellent. Whether the broken seat gave them a shock I am not sure they are trained for mishaps and the boats should be in tip top condition and be double checked before putting on the water.
GB are doing very well.

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