Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown are celebrating in London after winning bronze in the women’s doubles rowing.
The pair edged out the United States to come third behind Great Britain and Australia.
Haigh says they knew at the time it was a close call.
“We knew it was close and that’s why at the end of the race I just put my head down because I thought, ‘well I’ve done everything I can’ and it took a while to look up and look at the board, and see that we’d snuck in for a medal,” she says.
The double world champions were not favoured to win the race, with the Great Britain pair expected to row away with it and that’s exactly what they did to win GBs first gold medal of the London 2012 Olympics.
By the 100 metre mark it was all GB, with the Kiwi women trying to fight off late challengers from all sections of the rowing course.
By the 1500m mark, the Kiwis were five seconds behind and a little over a boat length ahead of the third placed Aussies and a fast finishing USA team.
In an epic battle for second, the Kiwis dug deep but the Aussies surged on the line to steal the silver.
Scown says they’re delighted with their win.
“To be honest, when we crossed the line I didn’t actually think we’d got a medal, so I was pretty pleased that we came up on the board as getting to take one home.”
Former Olympian Nicky Cole says it was a nerve-wracking race to watch.
“My heart was in my mouth watching it. I really didn’t know how they were going to do over the line.”
Watch the video for Firstline’s interview with the pair.
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