Olympic rowing: Britain storms to women's sculls gold

London, Aug 3 (IANS/RIA Novosti) British world champion crew Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins stormed to Olympic gold in the women's double sculls final here Friday.

Grainger and Watkins opened up an early lead on the Australian pair of Kim Crow and Brooke Pratley and only pulled away to time six minutes, 55.82 seconds.

For veteran rower Grainger, 36, it was a long-awaited first place after three consecutive silvers in Sydney, Athens and Beijing.

"It's been a long, long wait. It's not been painful, I've had a great few years. This is the culmination of a lot of hard work," she said.

The Australians were nearly three seconds back, with Polish crew Magdalena Fularczyk and Julia Michalska grabbing the bronze a further nine seconds adrift.

Australia's Kim Crow was blown away by the British performance.

"That was fantastic. An amazing race. Those girls were phenomenal. That's the classiest race I've ever been part of," she said

--IANS/RIA Novosti

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