The Batten sisters, alongside Scots Lindsay and Grainger, clinched a landmark second place finish in the final by just one hundreth of a second.

The actual decision on the result was delayed to allow for closer analysis of the photo finish.

Indeed Australian TV captions suggested the Russian quartet had edged it - but the jury awarded silver to the Brits following a lengthy inspection.

They had moved into third place at the halfway mark and upped their stroke in the second half of the race to produce a thrilling finish.

Defending Olympic champions Germany - Manja Kowalski, Meike Evers, Manuela Lutze, Kerstin Kowalski - comfortably took gold in 6:19.58.

But Britain's late surge saw them sneak home in 6:21.64, 0.01 second ahead of Russians Oxana Dorodnova, Irina Fedotova, Ioulia Levina and Larisa Merk.

"I honestly didn't see a thing for the last 10 strokes," an overjoyed Guin Batten enthused afterwards

"We wanted to have the first British women Olympics medals."

Lindsay said of the frantic final few strokes: "That's one of the closest finishes we have seen for a while.

"We had always been worried about our finishes."

Fellow Scot Grainger added: "It is something that every one of us hopes and dreams for."

And Gillian Batten, who was also celebrating her 27th birthday, concluded: "We did exactly what we said we would do.

"It is the best birthday present."