Our athletes bask in Olympic glory

Aug 18 2008 By John Whitbread

Olympic rowers

Athletes from Molesey, Weybridge and Ashford claimed a big share of the glory as Great Britain made it an amazing weekend of Olympic gold medals.

Andy Triggs-Hodge and Tom James of Molesey Boat Club were half of the brilliant 'oarsome foursome' who won the coxless fours while Sarah Webb, of Weybridge and Sarah Ayton of Ashford formed two thirds of "Three Blondes in a Boat Part Two" in the victorious Yngling sailing crew.

How Hodges and co put us through the shredder on Saturday. It was not until the last painful breathless metres of Saturday's final

"I've never felt such pain in all my life" said Hodge after driving his crwew to their limits and beyond to snatch victory from the Australians in the last 100 metres.

Sarah Ayton and Sarah Webb become only the second British female athletes in history to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals after claiming Yngling class victory with crew Pippa Wilson at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Sailing Regatta in Qingdao on Sunday.

Ayton and Webb matched the achievement of their former helm Shirley Robertson, with whom they won Yngling gold at Athens 2004, to be the only British women in any sport to have ever sealed gold medals at consecutive Olympic Games.

Having topped the leaderboard going into the medal race by the narrowest of one point margins, the British Yngling trio knew whatever the placings they simply had to finish ahead of the Dutch team of Mandy Mulder, Annemieke Bes and Merel Witteveen.

Ayton got off to a flying start but with the Dutch tracking them all the way to the top mark. However, once the Brits had rounded the mark ahead there was no stopping them and with the Dutch trailing home in medal race fifth, gold was Ayton, Webb and Wilson’s, 24 points to 33 overall.

Ayton said: "It has been brilliant and highlights what this campaign has always been about; pure perfection and we’re just an awesome team. We’ve been looking at starting as something we had to address, and we executed it perfectly today.

"I’m lost for words, it is such a relief, our experience was everything. We’ve had so many supporters who have made such a difference along the way and we just want to thank everyone," Webb added, paying special tribute to their coach Paul Brotherton.

Edwards added "This has been the dream and it hasn’t really sunk in yet, it’s pretty awesome. We’ve known since day one that you can expect anything out there. That’s our strength really, that we’re happy to come out in anything."

And the golds may well not end there.

Elmbridge canoe Club star Tim Brabants blew the rest of the field away thios mornin g to win his heat of the K1 1000 metres kayak canoeing. He goes straight through to the final on Friday.