Agony and ecstasy as British rowers have extraordinary day in Beijing

Katherine Grainger plumbed similar depths of the soul, but she and her crew could not find quite enough to avoid the agony of her having to settle for a third consecutive silver medal.

A final silver for the men's eight made this a magnificent weekend for British rowing, but also a day of the most polarised emotions to send the stoniest heart both soaring and sinking.

Ecstasy: Union Jack waving Mark Hunter (left) and Zac Purchase never flagged as they took Olympic gold in the lightweight double scull

Lightweight double scullers Zac Purchase and Hunter, the Posh 'n Pecs of GB rowing, rowed a commanding race and held off the late challenge of Greece to win the team's second gold by half a length.

Grainger and her fellow quadruple scullers could not pull off the same trick against an extraordinary burst from the Chinese over the last 500 metres and surrendered their lead.

The pain of coming second after four years' work was insuperable and they could not be consoled in the aftermath, barely able to speak with their tears irrigating the walkways around the Shunyi water park.

Hopefully in time to come they will be able to reflect on their part in a historic British haul of two golds, two silvers and two bronzes, far outstripping the four medals of Athens. Institutional excellence appears to have been established.

The two knights, Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent, may have gone — this was the first Olympics in 24 years without one of them - but the success and extraordinary human drama they brought survives them.

Hunter, 30, the apprenticed Thames waterman, had passed out when he pulled up to the pontoon after winning his longed-for gold and had to be dragged out of the boat by his partner.

 Agony: Britain's women's quadruple sculls let their lead slip and must settle for silver

A few minutes later he was prostrate in the car park, vomiting on to the grass verge, while Purchase, 22, looked like he had done nothing more strenuous than lazily cross the Serpentine.

'I always push myself to the limit and unfortunately that means being sick for me. When Zac gets to my age then he can start being sick as well,' joked Hunter, Britain's first joint gold medallist in his event.

'I knew the Greeks were coming up at the end. Everything was burning and I was in that dark place but managed to come out smiling.

'This is what I've been dreaming about since I started out as a kid. After finishing 13th in Athens that was the most depressing experience of my life and it took me a long time to come to terms with it. I didn't sleep well last night and before the race your legs are like jelly, but once you get into the boat you are in your element.'

Hunter stopped well short of Redgrave's famous 'shoot me if you see me in a boat' pronouncement, but will now ponder his future.

'I'll digest this and see if I've got anything left to offer the sport. I can't get too fat now because I'm going to Los Angeles on holiday and I want to look good on the beach.'

Grainger, 32, was broken on the anvil of 2000m racing and four years' worth of expectations. She was contrastingly distraught after her boat failed to hold on to a similar advantage at the 1500m mark against the Chinese, rarely seen in international competition this season.

'It's definitely the hardest silver medal I've had, we are all absolutely devastated right now,' she said of the crew, among whom Debbie Flood was particularly suffering afterwards.

'It's another medal and I'm really proud of what we've done together but we came for gold, make no bones about that. You do whatever you can but it wasn't enough. I'm going to have a holiday and then think about the future.'

If there was a raw quality to Hunter and Grainger's emotions then Adam Partridge, inserted into the men's eight after losing his place in Saturday's gold-winning coxless fours, was more circumspect.

The fastest qualifiers, his boat never managed to put sufficient pressure on the victorious Canadians, but held off a spirited charge from the Americans to narrowly clinch silver.

'I don't know what to think, I kind of feel a bit flat,' he said. 'We've got everything right for the last seven weeks but today we didn't. I'm very disappointed not to have got gold but I'm proud of what we've done and I've had the best fun ever being with these guys over the last few weeks.'

The two boats to miss out were the lightweight four, pushed back to fifth after holding third for much of the race, and the women's eight, also fifth after losing Alison Knowles and Natasha Howard to flu yesterday morning.