Canadian women's 8 rowing team holds off Great Britain to capture Olympic silver

Canada's defending-champion women's eight rowing team has won a silver medal at the Paris Olympics.

Led by coxswain Kristen Kit and three other returnees from the Tokyo 2021 championship crew, the Canadians covered 2,000 metres in five minutes 58.84 seconds for a silver medal at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium in France.

"So much gratitude for these women. They [answered] every single call I asked them to do," Kit told CBC Sports. "They dug way deeper than I've ever seen anyone dig. You can't count out [Canadian women] until [the race] is done."

Added Avalon Wasteneys, a member of the 2021 Olympic squad: "Right from the beginning, I think we all trusted each other, we believed in each other and we knew it was going to be a great, tough race.

WATCH l Canadian women's 8 team races to silver at Paris 2024:

"Off the start we went as hard as we could. We added some extra pushes. There were [times] when I had doubt but I just kept backing myself by believing in the girls around me because I knew we had such a strong crew. Kit was pushing us, pushing us, pushing us and we hung on and gave our best effort."

Romania won gold in 5:54.39, with Great Britain (5:59..51) taking bronze.

"Our [coxswain] Victoria Stefania Petreanu told us in the last 500 metres the gold was ours, but I didn't believe it," said Romanian rower Maria Lehaci. "I knew that we had to go for the finish line and here we are. We are Olympic champions."

WATCH l Canadian women's 8 team receives silver medals:

Canada's victory in 2021 ended a medal drought in the event dating to the London Games in 2012, and it's the ninth straight Olympics Canada has won a medal in rowing dating back to 1992.

The Canadian women's 8 crew clinched a berth for Paris last