Rebecca Adlington won the Olympic 400 metres freestyle on this day in 2008 to become Britain’s first female swimming gold medallist for 48 years.
The 19-year-old from Mansfield became the first woman to top the podium since Anita Lonsbrough in 1960 with her exquisite performance in the pool.
Adlington snatched gold ahead of American Katie Hoff in a thrilling finger-tip finish in Beijing, winning by 0.07 seconds in a time of four minutes 3.22secs.
Team-mate Joanne Jackson took bronze, with the pair becoming the first British women 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 said 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 end up leaving China with another gold medal, smashing the oldest world record in swimming in the process.
The teenager completed the distance double in Beijing’s Water Cube with an inspired swim in the 800m freestyle to leave the opposition trailing behind her by more than six seconds.
Adlington claimed the gold by breaking Janet Evans’ long-standing world record for the event – a mark of eight minutes 16.22 seconds set at the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo in 1989 and widely regarded as among the greatest records ever set in swimming.
Adlington, though, demolished it, touching in 8:14.10, 2.12 seconds faster than Evans’ time and well clear of second-placed Alessia Filippa of Italy and Denmark’s bronze medallist Lotte Friss.
