WINDSOR, England (AP) — Peter Kretschmer and Kurt Kuschela of Germany won the gold medal Thursday in the men's 1,000-meter C-2 at the Olympic canoe sprint regatta.

The Germans came through strong in the final 250 meters to win in 3 minutes, 33.804 seconds, a half-length ahead of defending champions Andrei Bahdanovich and Aliaksandr Bahdanovich of Belarus. Alexey Korovashkov and Ilya Pervukhin of Russia took the bronze.

Kretschmer and Kuschela won a World Cup event in Poznan, Poland, in May and were the quickest qualifiers for the final by two seconds.

It was Germany's second gold and fifth medal of the regatta.