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Posted: August 13, 2016

Polly Swann and Karen Bennett, both from Edinburgh, were in the GB women's eight that stormed through to take silver medals behind USA in Saturday's final.

This means that a new record of four Scottish medals were gained over the three days of finals at the Lagoa Stadium.

The GB eight went through 500 metres in sixth place, with Canada and the Netherlands setting the early pace, just ahead of USA.  The situation was still the same at halfway but the USA moved into the lead before 1500 metres, as the British crew moved into third behind Canada.  Eventually the Canadians and the Dutch faded, with Britain crossing the line less than a length down on the USA and Romania pipping New Zealand for bronze.

After the race, Polly Swann said, "it's just incredible.  I just can't really express how amazing today has been.   I sat on the start line so confident, so self-assured.  I felt I was the weakest link in this eight and that made me feel incredible, that I could do anything.  I'm so proud of how we held ourselves through that  race.  we knew the conditions favoured us, Karen and I from Scotland grew up in the wind and we know how to deal with these conditions.  That meant when the wind hit hard through the middle we knew we had it."

She added, "I didn't know we were last at any point, it was a good job by Zoe (cox Zoe de Toledo) to keep us in the boat.  But you could feel the crews around us working hard. We knew if we kept our rhythm, we could come out on top. The Americans are a really classy crew and hats off to them, they delivered a great race.  But I can’t be more happy with how we did today."

Karen Bennett said, "I was really nervous at the start and I knew we were down.  The thousand metres-mark came really quickly and before we knew it we were in the last 600 metres and I was just thinking ' we need to go , we need to go'.  That last bit of the race I was so tired coming over that line. So it's going to take a while to sink in. I think it will.  I was absolutely gone after the race but It feels really, really good."

Bennett also confirmed that the crew had seen a message specially-recorded by the Scottish Home International team in Cardiff three weeks earlier.

"Yes, we saw the message from the Home International Team last week.  It was part of a montage that Zoe had pulled together.  We also had messages from family and friends and it just reminded me of all the people who had been supporting us all this time.  I haven't had a chance to say 'thank you' on social media yet but I will do."

Immediately after the women's eights race, GB took gold in the men's eights to finish top of the rowing medal table, with three golds and two silvers.

Article by Mike Haggerty.Photograph courtesy of Peter Spurrier/Intersport Images

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