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 a photo finish in the women’s quadruple sculls.
The Batten sisters, alongside the Scots Lindsay and Grainger, moved into third place at the half-way mark and upped their stroke rate in the second half of the race to clinch Britain’s second rowing medal of the Games by a mere one hundreth of a second.
Defending Olympic champions Germany with Manja Kowalski, Meike Evers, Manuela Lutze and Kerstin Kowalski comfortably took gold in 6min 19.58sec but there was a thrilling finish behind them in the battle for silver.
The British quartet were trailing but produced a late surge over the final metres to force a photo finish.
Australian television finish times suggested the Russian quartet of Oxana Dorodnova, Irina Fedotova, Ioulia Levina and Larisa Merk had got silver but the jury decided to stage an inspection of the photo finish. After a delay it was announced that the Britons had edged it.
"I honestly didn’t see a thing for the last ten strokes," said Guin Batten. "We wanted to have the first British women Olympics medals."
Lindsay added: "That’s one of the closest finishes we have seen for a while. We had always been worried about our finishes."
Miriam Batten, who turned 27 today, said: "We did exactly what we said we would do. It’s the best birthday present for me today.
