Brit feels sympathy for beaten Aussies

Whisper it quietly but we've just found an English sportsman feeling sympathy for some beaten Australians.

Rower Alex Gregory and his crew won the men's four a second ahead of the Australian crew, making it five gold medals in a row for the Great Britain team.

"One of the difficult things is, we've seen these guys every day, we've walked past them, nodded, they're just like us," Gregory, a dual gold medallist, said on Friday.

"We're mates with them, one of them could come into our team tomorrow and it would be no different.

"That's one of the hard things about sport.

"It's war out there, but then off the water, you sort of feel bad for them a little bit."

Bad enough to give the hard-working and friendly Aussies the win?

"No, no. We've got a job to do."