Rebecca Adlington gained the Olympic 400 metres freestyle on this present day in 2008 to turn out to be Britain’s first feminine swimming gold medallist for 48 years.
The 19-year-old from Mansfield grew to become the primary lady to high the rostrum since Anita Lonsbrough in 1960 together with her beautiful efficiency within the pool.
Adlington snatched gold forward of American Katie Hoff in an exhilarating finger-tip end in Beijing, profitable by 0.07 seconds in a time of 4 minutes 3.22secs.
Team-mate Joanne Jackson took bronze, with the pair turning into the primary British girls to win an Olympic medal since Sarah Hardcastle in Los Angeles in 1984.
“We are both so happy to have two British girls on the podium,” Adlington mentioned after the pair’s heroics. “I don’t think either of us expected it and especially a gold and a bronze, it’s absolutely amazing.
“I can’t actually believe it. It hasn’t sunk in yet. I’m just over the moon. I have just watched it back on TV and I said ‘I didn’t win that.’ Then they showed the underwater shot and my hand just got there.
“I can’t believe that I have won an Olympic medal and to have Jo there as well was absolutely fantastic. I was just so happy to be on the podium with my best friend, I love Jo to bits.
“She’s so close to me it was so great to be up there with her and to have all the team looking down on you, hearing them singing the national anthem, and not in tune at all!”
Adlington would find yourself leaving China with one other gold medal, smashing the oldest world document in swimming within the course of.
The teenager accomplished the space double in Beijing’s Water Cube with an impressed swim within the 800m freestyle to go away the opposition trailing behind her by greater than six seconds.
Adlington claimed the gold by breaking Janet Evans’ long-standing world document for the occasion – a mark of eight minutes 16.22 seconds set on the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo in 1989 and extensively thought to be among the many biggest data ever set in swimming.
Adlington, although, demolished it, touching in 8:14.10, 2.12 seconds sooner than Evans’ time and nicely away from second-placed Alessia Filippa of Italy and Denmark’s bronze medallist Lotte Friss.