Rowing pair win Britain's first gold medal

Rowers Helen Glover and Heather Stanning won the women's pair title Wednesday to register Great Britain's first gold medal at the London Olympics. The pair, also capturing 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. Glover and Stanning had the race sewn up in the first quarter of the 2000m test on the water at Eton Dorney, at one stage pulling four boat lengths 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. She took to rowing via a recruitment campaign by UK Sport and said: "This shows that if I can do it, and work hard, anyone can do anything." Stanning is a captain in the Royal Artillery Regiment and her colleagues, currently on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, were one of the first to offer her congratulations on a live video link up on the BBC. She said: "I'm shattered and overjoyed. Helen was saying 'keep going, keep going' at the end. We wanted to get ahead quickly and that's what we did."