Rowing rookie and Army captain bag first Team GB gold

Rowers Helen Glover and Heather Stanning won the women’s pair title yesterday to give Great Britain its first gold medal at the London Olympics.

The pair, who also captured the host nation’s first ever women’s Olympic rowing gold medal, crossed the line well clear of Australia, with world champions New Zealand taking bronze.

In other finals action on the water at Eton Dorney, west of London, Ukraine took gold in the women’s quadruple sculls, with world champions Germany winning the men’s eight.

Glover and Stanning took control from the first stroke and had the race sewn up in the first quarter of the 2,000m test, at one stage pulling an audacious four-boat length clear of their rivals.

Unbeaten in World Cup races this year, the British duo started as hot favourites, having set a new Olympic record in their heat – a remarkable achievement considering Glover hadn’t even sat in a boat four years ago.

Stanning is a captain in the Royal Artillery Regiment and her Army colleagues, currently on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, were among the first to offer her congratulations on a live video link up on the BBC.

The Sandhurst-trained 27-year-old officer is planning to link up with her regiment in Helmand province after the Games.

Stanning, who has been on special training leave since 2010, said: “I’m ecstatic and shattered at the same time.

“Helen was saying ‘keep going, keep going’ at the end. We wanted to get ahead quickly and that’s what we did. We didn’t want to give anything back.”