The United States women's rowing pair of Sarah Zalenka and West Simsbury, Conn., native Sara Hendershot finished just 0.2 seconds out of a medal in an incredibly tightly raced final Wednesday at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Both Australia and the U.S. put up impressive sprints to chase down New Zealand in the final 500 meters. Only the Australians were able to complete the comeback, however, taking silver at just 0.53 seconds ahead of the U.S.
While spots 2-4 all finished with nearly a half second of each other, Great Britain enjoyed a dominant row for the its first gold medal of the London games. Helen Glover and Heather Stanning posted a winning time of 7:27.13, over 2.7 seconds ahead of the Australians. The pair opened up a nearly three-second gap over the field in the first 500 meters of the race, and simply held all challengers at bay from there.
The United States posted the fastest time over the final 1,000 meters of the 2,000-meter course, but it wasn't enough to make up for a sluggish first 1,000 meters. At the midway point of the race, Zalenka and Hendershot found themselves 7.11 seconds off the lead.
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