London Olympics 2012: Sophie Hosking basks in glory of surprise gold

EDINBURGH-BORN Sophie Hosking admits she is still coming to terms with how she and partner Kat Copeland went from a scratch pairing to 
Olympic gold medallists in the space of five months.

There may have been more emotional victories at Eton Dorney last week – Katherine Grainger’s triumph in the double sculls – and more historic ones – a fourth consecutive Olympic victory for the men’s four – but none were as improbable as Hosking and Copeland’s victory in women’s lightweight double sculls on Saturday.

In one of Britain’s traditionally weaker boats, Hosking had partnered Hester Goodsell until Team GB rowing chiefs opted for a radical reshuffle promoting talented 21-year-old Copeland in place of Goodsell.

Initially the results did not bear fruit with steady rather than spectacular results in the World Cup series but for 26-year-old that was all part of the plan to come into London 2012 as rank outsiders. She said: “We liked flying under the radar. We knew what we could do and no one else needed to know until today. I think the World Cup series was about learning how to race and gathering information, it wasn’t just about winning every World Cup. We first rowed together two winters ago at a training camp and I knew we could be a very strong pairing. We have worked together constantly and our improvement in the past six weeks has probably been better than I could have hoped for. I knew going into this that I had done absolutely everything I could.”