Historic gold for Adlington as Britain surpass expectations
Rebecca Adlington became Britain’s first female Olympic swimming champion for 48 years – and then admitted she even surprised herself.
The 19-year-old from Mansfield edged out American Katie Hoff to bag an historic gold in the 400m freestyle, while fellow Brit Jo Jackson followed
them home for the bronze.
Adlington’s gold was Britain’s first female success since Anita Lonsbrough won the 200m breaststroke in 1960, while her joint effort with Jackson means Britain’s women can celebrate two swimming medals for the first time in 24 years.
“We are both so happy to have two British girls on the podium,” she said. “I don’t think either of us expected it and especially a gold and a bronze, it’s absolutely amazing. It hasn’t sunk in yet. I’m just over the moon.”
But while Adlington was naturally delighted to have claimed Britain’s second gold medal of these Olympics, she was still slightly disappointed with her time of 4.03.22.
“We just tried to ignore the times and race the final. I don’t think either of us are natural sprinters, we don’t do the 100m free so we are naturally suited to the back half of the race,” she added. “We didn’t panic when we were a little bit behind. I didn’t see anyone past Katie, I didn’t know what was going on.”
The British pair paced themselves perfectly throughout, with Adlington fifth, one place behind Jackson, at the half-way point with only half a second blanketing the entire field.
In the meantime, however, Hoff had built a decisive lead and with 10 metres to go, was half a length clear.
But Adlington had begun a scorching final 50 metres and eventually touched home seven hundredths of a second ahead of her rival.
Jackson also staged a late rally but, in the end, had to hold off a spirited challenge from Coralie Balmy for the bronze medal place, while Italian world record holder Federica Pellegrini was left languishing in fifth.
The result meant Great Britain surpassed their entire medal haul in the pool from Athens 2004 in one race and also put Team GB on course to meet their target of 35 medals from UK Sport.
Just four years ago, Great Britain amassed 30 medals but had to wait seven days for their first gold. Now they have two from the opening three days after cyclist Nicole Cooke’s thrilling win in the women’s road race on Sunday.