Former SA rowing Olympian hails men's pairs
One of the first people to congratulate Lawrence Brittain and Shaun Keeling on winning silver in the rowing pairs at the Olympics on Thursday was fellow Olympian Ramon di Clemente.
Di Clemente won bronze in the same event at the Athens Olympics 12 years ago.
Since then he’s gone on to actually row with both South Africa’s latest silver medallists.
In 2008 he teamed up with Keeling not too long before the Beijing Olympics and the duo raced to an impressive fifth spot in the A Final.
He then teamed up with Brittain after Beijing and they went on to medal at World Cup level.
"The boys raced well today. They needed to have a good second thousand and they did that," said De Clemente.
" I’m so proud of them as I’ve rowed with them both.
"They did themselves justice as they’ve been working hard for many years."
Di Clemente went on to express his confidence that the code will continue to make great strides.
" The more medals we get the more popular it will become and I think there’s lots to look forward to."
Lawrence’s silver now adds to Matthew’s gold when he was part of the lightweights fours in London four years ago.