IT’S Super Saturday – an amazing day when the gold medals just keep on coming for Great Britain. Six gold medals in one single day. It doesn’t get better than that.
GOLD 1: It all started at Eton Dorney when Andrew Triggs-Hodge, Pete Reed, Tom James and Alex Gregory beat arch rivals Australia to claim our fourth consecutive gold in the coxless fours.
No one has done that since 1932 and our rowing haul so far – four golds, two silvers and three bronze – confirms this is Britain’s most successful Olympic regatta ever, beating the eight medals won in London 1908.
GOLD 2: Minutes later, Sophie Hosking and Kat Copeland surge ahead in the final 500 metres of the women’s lightweight double sculls to take gold, leaving the world champion Chinese rowers in their wake.
Tears flow as the pair realise they have won and fling their arms around each other in jubilation Sophie, 26, from Wimbledon reveals her parents David and Louise are working as volunteers at Eton Dorney so they can be on hand to watch their daughter claim gold. Sophie’s dad David, world champion in the lightweight eight in 1980, said: “I’m in absolute awe of her.”
GOLD 3: With Paul McCartney cheering them on in the Velodrome, cycling’s “three sisters” – Dani King, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell – destroy all opposition in the 3km team pursuit. Dani, 21, Jo, 23, and 20-year-old Laura are a full six seconds faster than the Americans in the final, which they win in a world record time of 3mins 14.05secs.
Delighted Dani, who only took up the sport to avoid maths at school in Southampton says: “We’re like sisters. Winning gold is a dream come true.”
Jo, from Carshalton, adds: “I could tell we’d done it by the cheer of the crowd.”
GOLD 4: Later in the Olympic Stadium, Jessica Ennis proves she really is Britain’s golden girl by winning the heptathlon.
With 80,000 fans screaming her to victory, she sprints over the line in the final event, the 800m, to take gold.
GOLD 5: He is nicknamed the Olympic Torch because of his flame-red hair – and long-jumper Greg Rutherford set the Games alight. With the crowd clapping every step of the run up to the sand, he takes a flying leap of 8.31m to win our fifth gold of the day.
Greg, 25, from Milton Keynes, becomes the first Brit since Lynn Davies in Tokyo in 1964 to win gold in the long jump.
He says: “This will probably be the greatest night of my life but I will keep striving for more.”
GOLD 6: It is certainly Britain’s greatest night ever in the Olympics as mighty Mo Farah becomes the first Briton ever to win gold in the 10,000m. With the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the PM among the capacity crowd at the Olympic Stadium, Mo runs the six miles in 27minutes 30.42 seconds, sprinting over the line to claim our sixth gold of the day.
Afterwards, he says: “It was amazing. My legs were getting tired but the crowd gave me a huge lift. If it wasn’t for the crowd and the support – shouting my name and putting up Union Jacks – I wouldn’t have won.
“This is my country and when I put on my GB vest I am very proud.”
It’s a pride shared by the rest of the nation.
