Firefighters go for gold by meeting Olympic heroes (From Bucks Free Press)

Firefighters go for gold by meeting Olympic heroes

7:30am Tuesday 7th August 2012 in News By Andy Carswell

GOLD medal winning rowers met Bucks firefighters after stepping down from the podium.

Crews from around the county who have been based at Eton Dorney for the duration of the Olympics got to meet Team GB's gold medal winning heroes.

Marlow's Katherine Grainger was among those to meet the crews after finally securing a winner's medal in the double sculls with Anna Watkins on Friday.

The Olympic firefighting crew, some of whom are based at Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross, High Wycombe, Princes Risborough and Stokenchurch, also had their photos taken with victorious pairs Sophie Hosking and Katherine Copeland and Heather Stanning and Helen Glover.

And they got into the international spirit of the Games by meeting Poland's bronze medal winner Magdalena Fularczyk.

The crew of 12 took a well-earned break from ensuring safety and security at the busiest Olympic venue outside the capital to have their pictures taken with the rowers.

Denis O’Driscoll, Head of Service Delivery for Buckinghamshire, said: "This is the culmination of years of planning and preparation, during which we have worked very closely with our multi-agency partners through training and exercising.

"Our role is to help ensure safety and security at Eton Dorney, and we have a great team of staff working to achieve this both on-site and off-site at various locations.

"With a worldwide audience of up to four billion, it is vital that everything runs well. We will have a presence there on all days that the public are on site.

"Our focus is not just on the Olympics, though. The resources at Eton Dorney are in addition to our normal level of response that remains in place 24/7 during this period, which is helping make Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes the safest areas in England in which to live, work and travel."