Britain wins first Olympic gold medal

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DORNEY, England, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Helen Glover and Heather Stanning gave the home crowd its first Olympic gold medal to cheer Wednesday, winning the initial rowing final of the Games.

Glover and Stanning captured the pairs event, getting off to a quick start and easily holding on. They then stood on the medal platform while God Save the Queen was played for the first time at any of the 2012 Olympic competition venues.

The boat from Ukraine then won the women's quadruple sculls and Germany captured the men's eights. There will be 11 more rowing finals contested during the next three days.

Glover and Stanning raced quickly from the start and after the first 500 meters, a quarter of the way through the race, they had a lead of nearly 3 seconds. They kept a similar advantage all the way to the finish.

They were timed in 7:27.13 with Australians Kate Hornsey and Sarah Tait in second place at 7:29.86. New Zealand's Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown finished third in 7:39.19.

Americans Sara Henderson and Sarah Zelenka seemed to have second place wrapped up with 200 meters to go, but faded badly and were passed by two boats, finishing fourth just 0.2 second out of the medals.

Ukraine's winning time in the quadruple sculls was 6:35.93. Germany took the silver and the United States won the bronze.

In the men's eights, Germany held off the charging Canadians with a time of 5:48.75. Britain finished third and the United States was 0.3 second farther back -- again just missing out on a medal

Semifinals were held in the men's single sculls and two-time defending Olympic champion Olaf Tufte of Norway failed to make the final. He finished sixth and last in his heat.

Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic, winner of the silver medal in Beijing, and Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand, who won the bronze four years ago and is a five-time world champion in the event, won the two semifinal heats.