Olympics rowing: GB bronze in men's eight won by Germany

Great Britain men's eight claimed a bronze medal as world champions Germany took gold in a thrilling final.

Constantine Louloudis, Alex Partridge, James Foad, Tom Ransley, Ric Egington, Mo Sbihi, Greg Searle, Matt Langridge and cox Phelan Hill clocked a time of five minutes and 51.18 seconds.

They pulled ahead of Germany at halfway, but ran out steam with Canada pipping them on the line for silver.

It was Britain's second rowing medal after gold in the women's pair.

And it was a third Olympic medal for 40-year-old Searle who won gold with brother Jonny and cox Garry Herbert in Barcelona in 1992 and bronze in Atlanta (1996, coxless four) before coming out of retirement.

He said after Wednesday's bronze: "I don't think we could have given more. We said we wanted to look in the mirror and say we've given it all and we did that.

"It has been fantastic for these three years. There are some good people here."

On taking the lead at 1,000m, Searle said: "I had an amazing rush of adrenalin and I thought this really could come true. The crowd was so amazing, so loud, but we didn't have anything left and the Germans came back at the end."

The GB men's eight had had a disappointing final race ahead of the Games, finishing third in a regatta which did not feature favourites Germany and USA.

However, the return of Louloudis at stroke made a big difference with the crew running the Germans close in the heats and then qualifying for the final by winning the repechage.

Britain were running neck and neck with the Germans, unbeaten since 2009, after the first 1,000m before moving ahead to take a shock lead.

But the Germans responded and the Brits, roared on by the home crowd, had nothing left to give, dropping back inside the final 250m.

Defending Olympic champions Canada finished strongly to go past the British boat and take silver on the line.