MONTEMOR-O-VEHLO, Portugal, May 17 AAP - The Australian men's K4 1000 crew, gold medallists at the London Olympics in 2012, are finally back in the winner's circle after a year of struggles.
David Smith, Murray Stewart, Jacob Clear and Jordan Wood proved too strong for all opposition in winning their final at the season-opening World Cup meet in Portugal.
Three of the crew - Smith, Stewart and Clear - were members of the London gold medal boat, with Wood padding with the crew for the first time this weekend.
The K4 crew had indifferent form in 2014, failing to make the World Championship final in Moscow, and then had to deal with a positive drug test from team member, Tate Smith.
Since then high performance director, Richard Fox, has experimented with several different line-ups, before settling on the inclusion of 20-year-old Wood for this weekend.
The Australians took the final out strongly, staring down the two Spanish crews who looked as their major threat in the latter stages of the race, eventually winning by close to two seconds.
Their gold medal caps a successful weekend for Australia in Portugal, with Ken Wallace and Lachlan Tame winning gold in the K2 1000 and Murray Stewart silver in the K1 1000 on Saturday.
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