Barely three hours after they just missed the podium in their men’s pair race, rowers Kai Bartel of Niagara-on-the-Lake and Shane Keagan of Fonthill are golden.

They helped the Ontario men’s 8 team to a gold medal finish at the 2022 Canada Summer Games in Port Dalhousie just after noon.

It was really a two-team race.

Ontario edged British Columbia by a whisker, just 42/100ths of a second, to complete a big morning for Ontario on the Royal Henley course.

Alberta won bronze, 14 seconds behind the winners.

Ontario took gold in six races Saturday morning.

More to come

EARLIER STORY: Rowers Kai Bartel of Niagara-on-the-Lake and partner Shane Keagan of Fonthill finished a close fourth Saturday morning in their first of two medal races at the 2022 Canada Summer Games in Port Dalhousie.

The duo were second behind Alberta at the 1,000-metre halfway point but slipped to fourth by the finish line, missing the podium by just 5.53 seconds.

It was brisk race and Bartel and Keagan’s time was about 25 seconds faster than any of  their earlier heats.

Alberta took gold, Nova Scotia won silver and British Columbia edge the Ontario team for bronze.

Both Bartel and Keagan are members of Ontario’s men’s 8 team and they row for gold Saturday at  noon.

ORIGINAL STORY: Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Kai Bartel is rowing for medals in two races Saturday at the 2022 Canada Summer Games in Port Dalhousie.

Bartel and his partner Shane Keagan of Fonthill will race at 9:35 a.m in the pairs final at the Royal Canadian Henley rowing course.

And at noon, the two will compete with their men’s 8 crew in the gold medal race. Both events cover 2,000 metres on the Henley course.

With the men’s 8, Bartel and his teammates came first in their heat at 11:40 Wednesday morning and qualified for the final.

Earlier Wednesday, Bartel and Keagan were second in their heat behind a pair from British Columbia.

That placing allowed them to race in the repechage heat in the afternoon.

Repechage features the best-placed racers who didn’t win their heat and gives them a second chance to race for a spot in the final.

So, barely two hours after the men’s 8 race, Bartel and Keagan came second in the repechage and earned the chance to compete for a medal.

Bartel, 19, has been rowing since Grade 9 and competes for the St. Catharines Rowing Club during the summer and for the University of Victoria in fall and winter.  

With the annual Henley Regatta coming to a close just one week before the Summer Games officially started its rowing races, “It’s been a pretty quick turnaround since Henley,” Bartel said in an interview.

“We only got on the boat like a week ago.”

Bartel said he hopes to use the Canada Games experience as a stepping stone “on my journey to the Olympics.”