The British Columbia government is heartily congratulating both the men's eights rowing team for its thrilling silver-medal race and swimmer Brent Hayden for his bronze-medal performance in the 100-metre freestyle on Wednesday at the London Olympics.

The Canadian rowers, who train at Elk Lake in Saanich, held off the British team to finish second with a time of five minutes, 49.98 seconds. The German team won gold while Great Britain claimed the bronze medal.

The Canadian rowing team captured gold at the 2008 Beijing Games, however, only three members of that group are on the current team.

Mission's Hayden captured a bronze medal in the men's 100 freestyle with a time of 47.80 seconds. American swimmer Nathan Adrian won gold, while Australia's James Magnussen took silver.

Quote:

Ida Chong, Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development -

"This has been a glorious day for Canadian athletes in London. Canadian rowers are known to be strong competitors and our men's eights proved that today. Brent Hayden put in a spectacular performance of his own to capture the bronze in the men's 100-metre freestyle and Canada's first swimming medal of Games. I know that all British Columbians join me in congratulating these exceptional athletes on their fine performance."

Quick Facts:

• Members of the men's eights are (hometowns in brackets):

• Coxswain Brian Price (Belleville,Ont.)
• Will Crothers (Kingston, Ont.)
• Rob Gibson (Kingston, Ont.)
• Andrew Byrnes (Toronto, Ont.)
• Malcolm Howard (Victoria, B.C.)
• Conlin McCabe (Brockville, Ont.)
• Jeremiah Brown (Cobourg, Ont.)
• Doug Csima (Oakville, Ont.)
• Gabe Bergen (100 Mile House, B.C.)

• Coach: Mike Spracklen

• Byrnes, Howard and Price were also members of the 2008 Beijing gold medal winning team.

• Victoria is one of two national training centres in Canada for rowing.

• The Government of British Columbia contributes more than $200,000 annually to Rowing BC to support participation and high-performance programming.

• Brent Hayden was born and raised in Mission.

• Date of birth: Oct. 21, 1983
• Height: 6 ft., 4 inches/194cm; Weight: 188 lbs./85.5 kg
• Coach: Tom Johnson
• Club: Vancouver Dolphins
• Hayden's medal is Canada's first in swimming at the London Games.

• The government of British Columbia partners with Canada's 'Own the Podium' program to provide our Olympians and Paralympians the services and support they need through investment in the Canadian Sport Centre Pacific.
• British Columbia is home to one of Canada's national training centres for swimming.
• The government of B.C. invests more than $300,000 annually in Swim BC to support participation and high performance programming.

Learn More:

Canadian Olympic Committee: http://olympic.ca/

London 2012: http://www.london2012.com/rowing/

Jeff Rud
Communications Director
Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development
250.953-3677
250 208-4028 (cell)