Saturday, August 16, 2008 - 7:12 PM

Australian pair Drew Ginn and Duncan Free have won the country's sixth gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, taking out the men's pairs in the rowing.

Ginn and Free crossed the finish line in 6:37.44, just ahead of Canadian duo David Calder and Scott Frandsen, who clocked 6:39.55.

The Australian and Canadian boats were level pegging throughout the first half of the race but it was once they had passed the 1,000m mark that Free and Ginn pulled clear.

New Zealand's Nathan Twaddle and George Bridgewater finished third in 6:44.19.

It is Ginn's third rowing gold medal from as many Olympic Games, putting him on par with James Tomkins for the most gold medals by an Australian rower.

He revealed after the race that back pain had limited his training this week and it was touch and go whether he would compete.

"I have to be honest, we had a few touch and go moments," he said.

"I've had sciatica pain down my leg for the week.

"I just said I didn't want to know what the options were and all that sort of stuff.

"I didn't care. I wasn't going to go through the thing like 2000 again. It wasn't an option.

"At the start of the week there were a few hairy moments where we didn't know where it was going to go.

"So we haven't really rowed apart from the races. We were just about having the best row of our lives."

Free was ecstatic to win a first Olympic medal.

"From a week ago, and what's happened in the week, we've had a lot of highs and lows in emotions and thoughts," he said.

"Drew obviously didn't want to talk about it too much in terms of how bad it was, and I didn't want to ask him about it.

"I wanted him to row and it wasn't really an option planning to row with anyone else.

"For him to do what he's done with the injury he's had has been awesome.

"To get through the week in the minimal amount of work that we've done has been great."

The victory is Australia's first gold medal outside of the pool at the Beijing Games.

Tomkins has the chance to make it four gold medals in his career when he races in the final of the men's eight tomorrow.