London 2012 Olympics: Team GB men’s eight win gutsy bronze medal at Games

GREG SEARLE won a superb rowing bronze medal TWO DECADES after claiming gold at the 1992 Games in Barcelona.

Searle, 40, in the same boat as 20-year-old Constantine Louloudis, will never have competed in a race quite as intense as this.

Team GB came through 500m just 0.3secs behind Germany in second place and were 0.2secs back with 500m to go — but then the Germans turned the screw.

The team of Phelan Hill at cox, Alex Partridge, James Foad, Tom Ransley, Richard Egington, Mo Sbihi, Matt Langridge, Searle and Louloudis tried to keep up to speed and overtook Germany shortly before the half-way mark.

But the Germans responded with intent and justified their favourites tag

JUST GR-EIGHT ... Mitchel Steenman leads the German celebrations

Canada then came through at the end to pinch silver as Britain were forced to battle hard to hold on for a deserved bronze.

Langridge said: "Obviously we feel like we've failed. You go for the gold and the moment it doesn't happen you feel like you've lost.

"Today we did everything for gold and we didn't make it. OK, we've lost the silver for it but we're proud we went for gold."

Hill added: "It's really mixed emotions.

"We were really bold coming through 1250m, we took the lead at that point and were taking the risk but it wasn't quite enough."