London, Aug 9 (IANS/RIA Novosti): Peter Kretschmer and Kurt Kuschela stroked to Olympic gold in the men's canoe double 1,000 metres Thursday.
Kretschmer and Kuschela overhauled Sergiy Bezugliy and Maksim Prokopenko of Azerbaijan with 250 metres to go, winning in three minutes, 33.8 seconds.
Belarusian brothers and defending Olympic champions Andrei and Aliaksandr Bahdanovich shot through with the German pair into silver in 3:35.20.
Russia took a surprise bronze, pipping the team from Azerbaijan to the bronze by less than a second in 3:36.41.
Germany last won this event at Athens 2004, when Christian Gille and Tomasz Wylenzek beat Russia's Alexander Kostoglod and Aleksandr Kovalyov.