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Evers-Swindells, golden girls once again!
Rowing golden girls Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell have won a dramatic Olympic Games gold, pipping Germany in a double sculls photo finish at Shunyi by one hundredth of a second.
So close was the finish, that Germans Annekatrin Thiele and
Christiane Huth were initially posted as winners, but the
photo showed the New Zealand twins had got up on the last stroke of
the race.
The Ever Swindells joined an exclusive New Zealand club after
collecting their second consecutive gold medal.
Only five other Kiwis - Simon Dickie, Dick Joyce, Alan
Thompson, Mark Todd and Dayon Loader - have done the double, with
only Peter Snell, Paul McDonald and Ian Ferguson having more than
two.
After 18 months of injury woes, hashed results and even form
uncertainty coming to Beijing, the golden smiles that lit up Athens
were back again, and, as at Athens, the twins had claimed the first
New Zealand gold of the Games.
Germany led for much of the race, with world champions Qin Li and Liang Tian of China blown right out of the medals.
With 500m to row, Germany still had 1.65 seconds on the New Zealanders, but the black singlets descended like an avalanche in the last 100m to grab an unlikely win. Elise Laverick and Anna Bebington of Great Britain were third.
Even the twins could not believe they had got up to grab gold.
"It's a different feeling (than in Athens)," Caroline Evers-Swindell said.
"(Then) there was a lot of expectation on us and a lot of our own personal expectations, this time we were total underdogs, it is a bit of disbelief, actually. We are just pretty happy, everyone in that race was a chance to medal, China were the favourites. It is awesome to be there."
The twins were sweating on the finish. Even as they closed on the Germans, they feared they would be cut down from behind.
"We knew the other crews had a lot better finish than we
did."
