British rower Katherine Grainger has captured Olympic gold at her fourth attempt, winning the women’s double sculls with Anna Watkins at Eton Dorney.
The duo won by more than a length in 6 minutes, 55.82 seconds. Australia took the silver medal and Poland the bronze.
Grainger sobbed after winning silver in the quadruple sculls at Beijing, the third straight Olympics where she finished runner-up.
But since teaming up with Watkins in 2010, she has not lost a race and the pair set a new Olympic record in the heats.
“It was worth the wait,” she told the BBC, adding: “It’s just the satisfaction of a job well done.”
Watkins said: “I just can’t believe it, I just had to ask Katherine if it was a dream.”
It was Britain’s second gold of the regatta after Helen Glover and Heather Stanning’s victory in the women’s pair on Wednesday.
Northern Ireland’s Alan Campbell followed up Grainger and Watkins’ success by winning a bronze in the single scull.
The men’s pair of Will Satch and George Nash also took bronze as Britain’s rowing medal haul swelled to six.
Earlier, Britain’s Jessica Ennis began her quest for Olympic glory with a stunning result in the 100m hurdles.
She won her race in 12.54 seconds – the fastest time ever recorded for the hurdles in the heptathlon.
It was the perfect start for the 26-year-old in front of a sell-out crowd at the 80,000-seater Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London.
Ennis, from Sheffield, is also competing in the high jump, shot-put and 200m heats today.
The gruelling seven-discipline event ends with the javelin, long jump, and 800m on Saturday.
Team GB are hoping for a repeat of ‘Super Thursday’ today after the start of track and field at London 2012.
Britain won three gold and three silvers yesterday in rowing, canoeing, judo, cycling and shooting to lift them to fifth place in the medals table. They are now fourth with 18 medals in all.
Track cyclist Victoria Pendleton, who was disqualified in the team sprint on Thursday for a faulty changeover, will return to action in the Velodrome later in the keirin.
Ed Clancy, Steven Burke, Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh will go head-to-head with Australia as GB defend their Olympic men’s team pursuit title.
They will be hoping to emulate the men’s sprint team who yesterday landed gold in a world record time, albeit after controversy in the qualifying.
In the Aquatics Centre, Rebecca Adlington will look to retain her Olympic title over 800m, after taking bronze in the 400m freestyle earlier this week. The 23-year-old qualified fastest in Thursday’s heats.
Also competing today – Andy Murray in the men’s singles semi-finals, where he plays world number two Novak Djokovic, and Team GB women’s footballers who face Canada in the quarter-finals this evening.
One of the main Underground lines serving the Olympic Park was suspended in east London this morning as hundreds of thousands of people made their way to events. There were no trains running on the Central between Liverpool Street and Leytonstone because of a signal failure in the Bethnal Green area, Transport for London said. The service resumed later. The breakdown came hours after Prime Minister David Cameron urged people to “come back into the capital” following claims the Games have turned London into a ghost town, with commuters and non-Olympic tourists keeping away from the city.
Source : Orange
