Herald Classics: 2008 - Twins come through in a photo finish

The Evers-Swindell twins, Caroline and Georgina, won New Zealand's first gold at the Beijing Olympics. Photo / Kenny Rodger

One one-hundredth of a second turned a good day into a golden one on the lake at Beijing.

The Evers-Swindell twins, Georgina and Caroline, snuck across the line in 7m 07.32s, beating the German double of Annekatrin Thiele and Christiane Huth by less than the width of a bow ball.

In fact, the Germans were given the race on the line but after an agonising delay, photo-imaging determined that the twins had beaten them to the gold.

It was a sensational result for the Cambridge pair, who had been written off by many pundits following a disappointing, illness-ravaged campaign in Europe. Now they have indicated that London 2012 is a real possibility.

"We thought rowing can be quite boring for spectators so we thought we'd keep it close," a beaming Georgina said.

Georgina admitted that when the siren sounded she didn't mind whether it was going to be the top or second step on the dais.

"I don't think I really cared," she said. "It was a good race, we were really happy with it, we knew we might be in with a chance of a medal and didn't really mind what colour. The gold was a bonus."

The twins cut remarkably different figures from four years ago when the weight of expectation and their red-hot favouritism almost got to them.

"It's a different feeling. In Athens there were so many expectations on us, our own expectations. We were current world champions, this time we were total underdogs. It's a different feeling; it's sort of disbelief actually. I'm pretty happy," said Caroline.

The twins had a whole week to prepare. Again, in Athens, they found this difficult to cope with.

"We're a little bit older and wiser this time around and we kind of handled it a little bit better this time," Caroline said.

Don't be fooled into thinking retirement beckons.

"Richard reckons we've got another couple of Olympics in us so we'll see how it goes," Georgina said.

The twins were greeted on the pontoon by Drysdale, who hugged each other as they clambered from the boat. Knowing what the three-time world champion had been through earlier in the day, it meant a lot to the twins.

"He's been our training partner for the past month. He's been our main competition. He's an awesome guy to train with and he's the best in the world," Caroline said.

Drysdale provided New Zealand not only with its first medal of the Olympic Games, a bronze, but it came with a stretcher-load of drama too.

The 29-year-old single sculler collapsed in his boat after the gutsiest race of his career and had to be lifted from the vessel and placed on a stretcher. Following that he was worked on for more than 10 minutes by medical staff, including NZOC doctor Chris Milne, an IOC doctor and a member of the British medical staff.

At one point he tried to get to his feet again and promptly fell over. Somehow, with the assistance of New Zealand officials, he staggered to his feet and made a wobbly appearance at the medal presentation.

"I wanted to be there. I wanted to be part of that experience for the other guys," he said of gold medallist Olaf Tufte and second-placed Ondrej Synek. "They raced fantastically and it's not fair on them not to be there."

Drysdale even confessed he was a little sheepish about the drama.

"I've always walked out of the boat," Drysdale said. "It was almost embarrassing to do that but there wasn't anything left in the tank.

"The last 250m I just started to die. I was still leading for a bit of it but I just couldn't hold on. I can't remember the last 15-odd strokes."