Rowing: Croatia's Sinkovic celebrates birthday with men's pairs gold alongside brother

PARIS: Croatia's Valent Sinkovic celebrated his 36th birthday in style by coming from behind to win a sensational gold in the men's pair together with his brother Martin at the Paris Olympics on Friday (Aug 2).

In the women's race minutes later, the Netherlands took control from the start, opening up a big lead that they never relinquished and cruised to victory in 6:58.67 to take gold.

With the British men's crew of Oliver Wynne-Griffith and Tom George having led for most of the race, the Croatian brothers made a late break for glory, crossing the line in a time of 6:23.66, 0.45 seconds ahead of the British.

The Swiss pair of Roman Roeoesli and Andrin Gulich took the bronze in a time of 6:24.76.

The dominance of Dutch women's pair Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester in their race was never threatened as they eased to victory, leaving Romania and Australia in a furious battle for second place that came down to the last few metres.

The Australians looked like they had it wrapped up, but the Romanian crew squeezed past them just before the finish line to take the silver medal by just over half a second.

"It's such a great, great feeling. I actually kind of knew from the halfway point we were not going to give this away. It felt so strong and amazing, I really enjoyed it," Dutch rower Meester said.

The men’s lightweight double sculls final followed a very similar pattern to the preceding race, as defending Olympic champions Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy from Ireland took over by the halfway point, leaving Italy and Greece to fight it out for second.

Italy had made the early running, but they weren’t allowed to build up any sort of a lead as the Irish and Greek crews kept them in check.

But a heroic final spurt saw them cross