GB women land historic silver

Right to left: G Batten, Lindsay, Grainger, M Batten

Guin Batten, Gillian Lindsay, Katherine Grainger and Miriam Batten became the first British women to win a medal at an Olympic regatta after snatching silver in the quadruple sculls final.

The Batten sisters, alongside Scots Lindsay and Grainger, clinched a landmark second place finish in the final by just one hundreth of a second.

The actual decision on the result was delayed to allow for closer analysis of the photo finish.

Indeed Australian TV captions suggested the Russian quartet had edged it - but the jury awarded silver to the Brits following a lengthy inspection.

We wanted to have the first British women Olympics (rowing) medals

  Guin Batten

They had moved into third place at the halfway mark and upped their stroke in the second half of the race to produce a thrilling finish.

Defending Olympic champions Germany - Manja Kowalski, Meike Evers, Manuela Lutze, Kerstin Kowalski - comfortably took gold in 6:19.58.

But Britain's late surge saw them sneak home in 6:21.64, 0.01 second ahead of Russians Oxana Dorodnova, Irina Fedotova, Ioulia Levina and Larisa Merk.

"I honestly didn't see a thing for the last 10 strokes," an overjoyed Guin Batten enthused afterwards

"We wanted to have the first British women Olympics medals."

It is something that every one of us hopes and dreams for

  Katherine Grainger

Lindsay said of the frantic final few strokes: "That's one of the closest finishes we have seen for a while.

"We had always been worried about our finishes."

Fellow Scot Grainger added: "It is something that every one of us hopes and dreams for."

And Gillian Batten, who was also celebrating her 27th birthday, concluded: "We did exactly what we said we would do.

"It is the best birthday present."