GB rowers win Youth Olympics gold

2010 Youth Olympic Games
Venue: Singapore International Convention Centre Dates: 12-26 August
Coverage: Highlights on the BBC Red Button, iPlayer and the BBC Sport website

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Howard-Merrill was "surprised" to win the gold in Singapore

Rowers Georgia Howard-Merrill and Fiona Gammond won Team GB's second gold medal of the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore with victory in the women's pairs.

The duo beat Australia's Emma Basher and Olympia Aldersey by 0.74 seconds, while the Greek team of Eleni Diamanti and Lydia Ntalamagka finished third.

"It was amazing, it was such a close race," said Gammond after finishing in three minutes 28.60 seconds.

"We're not used to close races. It was exciting to have more competition."

Howard-Merrill added: "We're so surprised, we never expected it at all.

"We were calm and we just focused on our own performance. We had eyes in the boat and had a really good start. It means we'll have a good summer."

606: DEBATE Your view on the Youth Olympic Games

British duo Ed Nainby-Luxmoore and Caspar Jopling missed out on a medal as they finished fourth in the men's pairs, 3.72 seconds behind Jure Grace and Grega Domanjko of Slovenia who won gold.

Greece's Michalis Nastopoulos and Apostolos Lampridis took silver with Australia's Matthew Cochran and David Watts picking up the bronze.

"We changed our race plan from yesterday having been beaten by the Greeks and we knew the strong part of their race after their start and decided to push there," explained Nainby-Luxmoore.

"In pushing hard there, we tired ourselves out too much and in going for gold there, we missed out on a chance of getting any other medal.

"We've only been training since we've been out here. Initially, fourth place might have exceeded our expectations but coming into the end of the competition through the heats and the semis, we were hoping for more."

Meanwhile, Britain's David Bolarinwa and Jamaica's Odane Skeen won their qualifying heats in the men's 100m to set up a meeting between the two highly-rated young sprinters in Saturday's final.

Bolarinwa, 17, has the fastest time among 16 and 17-year-olds this year with a 10.39 seconds run in London and he eased to victory in his heat in Singapore in 10.62 secs.

Bolarinwa said: "I thought 'let me go there, go hard and see if anyone can go faster'. It was a good performance overall."

Skeen, 16, whose best time over 100m is 10.46, won his heat ahead of Thailand's Jirapong Meenapra in 10.63.

Daley 'devastated' to miss European final

Elsewhere, Britain's world champion diver Tom Daley is optimistic that he will recover from a triceps injury and compete at the Youth Olympics, despite pulling out of the European championships on Saturday.

Daley, who is due to compete in the 3m springboard competition and the 10m platform, said: "Obviously I'll be gutted if I can't compete, it's the first Youth Olympics and I'm really excited to be a part of it."

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