Rio 2016: Victoria Thornley enjoys 'nice' Olympic silver

Victoria Thornley admits her Olympic silver is "really nice" after the Welsh rower won a medal at Rio 2016 just six weeks after qualifying.

The 28-year-old from Wrexham emulated Commonwealth Games swimming champion Jazz Carlin, the 400m freestyle runner-up, by claiming silver in Brazil.

Thornley and partner Katherine Grainger were dropped from the double sculls but reunited for Rio just six weeks ago.

"It's been a hard few months," admitted Thornley. "We've had to dig deep."

Her silver was the first Welsh women's rowing Olympics medal in history and all the more remarkable as her partnership with Grainger was dissolved earlier this year.

They won European bronze last year, but they were broken up after failing to make the podium at this year's European Championships.

They both tested for the women's eight crew but fell short of their team-mates' times and were made to wait before being confirmed in the squad for the doubles.

Grainger and Thornley led by 0.64 seconds at the halfway mark but were narrowly beaten to gold as the Polish pair of Magdalena Fularczyk-Kozlowska and Natalia Madaj powered through to win by 0.95 seconds, with Lithuania in third.

"The last six weeks that we've been back in the double has been really enjoyable but has been hard," said Thornley.

"We've made some big changes, we had to dig deep but today it paid off.

"I'm just so thankful to Katherine, she did such a good job in that race ad it was quite a big headwind, I don't know what happened at the end as it became a bit tight. It's all a whirlwind. Still, the silver medal is really nice."

Thornley's silver is the fifth Welsh rowing medal in three Olympics as Tom James won golds in 2008 and 2012 while Tom Lucy won silver in 2008 and Chris Bartley silver in 2012.