SILVER FOR SUPERMUM SARAH

Thursday, 02 August 2012

VIS rowing supermum Sarah Tait opened Australia's Olympic rowing medal account in style with a thrilling silver medal with teammate Kate Hornsey in the women’s pairs.

In front of a full house of 25,000 fans at Eton Dorney, Tait and Hornsey produced a blistering finish which just failed to haul in British pair Helen Glover and Heather Stanning, who led from start to finish.

While the British girls dominated the race from the start, at the 100m mark there was nothing in the battle for silver between Australia, the US and New Zealand. Tait and Hornsey held their nerve to power home and steal silver, less than a second ahead of the luckless New Zealanders.

In today's second gold medal race, Australia's resilient quad sculls crew, featuring VIS rower Pauline Frasca, finished fourth - only an agonising second away from the bronze medal.

The team from the Ukraine dominated the final, with Germany and the US crew claiming the other medals.

The Aussie men's eight, featuring VIS rowers Tom Swann, Josh Booth and Cameron McKenzie-McHarg finished sixth of six in a closely-fought final at Lake Dorney.

The men's quadruple sculls crew (featuring VIS rower Karsten Forsterling) is through to the final after a second place finish in their semi-final. Australia finished two seconds behind Croatia and two-tenths ahead of Great Britain. The three crews will join Germany, Estonia and Polan in the final.