A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Investigation will not be completed during Games

BETTING CONTROVERSY:The investigation into allegations that Irish sailor Peter O'Leary bet on a fellow competitor at the 2008 Games in Beijing will not be finished during the Olympic Games, the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, Pat Hickey said last night.

The International Olympic Committee has asked the person who made the allegations against O’Leary in an email to respond “because you cannot condemn anybody without having a full disclosure in evidence”, Mr Hickey said at a reception for Irish Olympic athletes at the Irish Embassy in London last night.

“We are trying to get finished with it as soon as possible to the benefit of the athlete because we don’t want him concerned about it,” he said.

– MARK HENNESSY

Pair earn first gold for Britain

ROWING:Britain's Helen Glover and Heather Stanning stormed to victory in the women's pair yesterday to give the host nation their first gold of the London Games in front of Princes William and Harry and 25,000 screaming fans.

In the last race of the day, the German men’s eight held off a strong early challenge from Britain and a late charge from defending champions Canada to win the blue riband event in a thrilling sprint for the line.

In a feverish atmosphere rarely seen at an international regatta, all the crews said they had struggled to hear the instructions from their coxes as they came through a deafening wall of noise in the final 300 metres before the grandstands.

Stanning (27) and Glover (26) took a commanding early lead and held on to claim the first Olympic victory by a British women’s crew, settling the nerves of a nation without a gold medal five days into the Games.

“Ecstatic!” Glover yelled to reporters over the roar of the crowd. “It’s so surreal, it will take for ever to sink in.”

Adrian wins 100m freestyle by smallest ever Games margin

SWIMMING:Nathan Adrian won the 100 metres freestyle final at the London Olympics yesterday to become the first American to win gold in the blue-riband sprint for nearly a quarter of a century.

In a desperate finish, Adrian got his fingers on the wall 0.01 seconds, the smallest margin in Olympic swimming, ahead of Australian world champion James Magnussen.

Nathan stopped the clock at 47.52 seconds, with Magnussen second in 47.53. Canada’s Brent Hayden was third in 47.80.

While the United States has been the dominant power in Olympic swimming, the last American man to win the 100 metres freestyle gold was Matt Biondi at Seoul in 1988.

Meanwhile, swimming’s governing body, Fina, stepped to the defence of the Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen yesterday, insisting that there was “no factual basis” to doubts raised by an American coach about her gold medal winning performance in the 400-metre individual medley.

After the 16-year-old faced direct questioning over whether she had taken drugs, Fina said: “Fina would like to clearly state that there is no factual basis to support this kind of insinuations related to the performances of the Chinese swimmer Shiwen Ye.

“This athlete has fulfilled all of the Fina doping control obligations, having been tested on four occasions in the last 12 months, including twice before the Chinese Olympic trials in 2012.”

British won't join campaign

SPONSORSHIP:Members of the British athletics squad are not interested in joining an American-led campaign to allow competitors to reap financial rewards for taking part in the Olympics, preferring instead to focus on glory and gold medals.

“I don’t think any of us for one second thinks we deserve the right to be paid to be here,” Dai Greene, the world champion in the 400m hurdles, told reporters.

“We’ve all worked our socks off because we want to be the gold medallist and to get the kit and be part of the team and something special. I think that’s more than enough payment for us all, to be honest.”

Earlier this week a string of American track and field athletes launched a Twitter campaign to lift Rule 40 of the Olympic charter which prevents athletes promoting non-official brands during the Games.

If successful, their campaign will open the door for top athletes to secure lucrative personal sponsorship deals.