Former Ram Buie wins Pan Am gold, bronze

TORONTO - Canada added three rowing gold medals to their Pan American Games total at the Royal Henley course on Tuesday morning.

Canada now has a total of seven rowing medals — five golds and two bronze — with one more day of racing to go.

In men's quadruple sculls, Matthew Buie of Duntroon, Ont., Julien Bahain of Sherbrooke, Que., Will Dean of Kelowna, B.C. and Rob Gibson of Kingston, Ont. also led the entire race and won with a time of 5:42.22 seconds.

Cuba won silver in 5:44.39 and Argentina won bronze in 5:47.14.

Buie spent two summers on the Royal Henley course with the St. Catharines Rowing Club, and the experience paid off as the water got rougher along the course.

"Going out right off the start we wanted to get a solid lead because we knew once we came down here (the midway at Henley Island) it could get pretty rough and it's really hard to come back from behind in this rough water," he said.

The boat was filled with experience, including Bahain who has an Olympic bronze in this same event when he rowed for France in 2008, and Rob Gibson who was a member of Canada's silver-medal eights crew at the London Olympics.

Buie won bronze a day earlier in men's double sculls.

Buie competed for the Ryerson Rams from 2007-10 where he won both a gold and silver medal at the OUA championships during his career.

Source: Ryerson Rams