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Back home and with medals, rowers prep for London

Victoria-trained rowers Scott Frandsen and David Calder won silver at the 2012 World Cup

Victoria-trained rowers Scott Frandsen and David Calder are silver medalists once again. The Beijing runners-up in the men’s pair duplicated their famous effort from the 2008 Olympics and brought home one of three medals earned by Canada from last week’s 2012 World Cup in Switzerland.

“Our training and hard work has proved that you can teach an old dog new tricks,” Calder said.

Picked to compete in one of seven boats at this year’s London Olympics, the duo of Calder and Frandsen lost only to New Zealand, which was the favourite going in to the world cup.

“We’ve got the countdown to London in our heads right now.”

One of the biggest surprises was Canada’s men’s eight slipping to bronze in Sunday’s final, despite setting the world’s best time in the heat on Friday.

Coxswain Brian Price and rower Malcom Howard of Victoria return to lead the gold-medal winning boat from Beijing, with Ontario rowers Will Crothers, Jeremiah Brown, Andrew Byrnes, Conlin McCabe, Rob Gibson and Doug Csima, plus Gabe Bergen from 100 Mile House.

The lightweight women’s double of Tracy Cameron and Lindsay Jennerich finished second in the B final, the equivalent to eighth overall.

Canada’s women’s eight lost gold in a photo finish to U.S.A. Our southern neighbours squeaked out a gold-medal victory over Canada by .03 of a second. The rowers return to Canada this week though the women’s eight will continue to train and compete in Europe.

sports@vicnews.com