Bronze for our Bryony

9:31am Wednesday 20th August 2008

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TEARFUL Bryony Shaw today won a bronze medal in the windsurfing at the Olympics.

Shaw, 25, of Wyke Regis, became the first ever British woman to win an Olympic windsurfing medal after producing a fine performance in Qingdao this morning.

She finished second in the medal race for the women's RS:X windsurfing class to leave her third place overall in the standings behind Jian Yin of China and Alessandra Sensini of Italy.

It wasn't all plain sailing for Shaw, competing in her first Olympics, as at one point she had an extremely close encounter with Spanish windsurfer Marina Alabau, who was given a penalty for an infringement.

After crossing the finish line a tearful Shaw said: "It was such a hard race and it was such a hard week. I'm just so happy, it's just the best thing in the world.

"I just wanted to sail as fast as I could and see what happened.

"Well done to the Chinese girl and the Italian girl, they had a fantastic week, it was really tough racing right up to the end."

• Meanwhile, there was agony for the other Weymouth windsurfer, Nick Dempsey, a bronze medallist in Athens four years ago, after he narrowly missed out on a medal.

Dempsey, who went into the final race in the silver medal position, finished fourth overall after coming sixth in this morning's contest.