Olympic medallist Miriam Batten, who made sporting history with her sister at the Sydney Games, said yesterday: "We did it for our mum."
Rower Miriam, 35, returned home yesterday after winning silver with her sister Guin and team mates Gillian Lindsay and Katherine Grainger in the women's quadruple sculls.
Their Olympic medals were the first to be won by a British women's rowing team. Miriam said: "These games have been much happier for us than Atlanta in 1996.
"The day I arrived in America we found out our mum had been diagnosed with cancer."
Their mum Madella died less than two years later - without seeing her daughters win an Olympic medal.
Yesterday Miriam, who grew up in Ditchling and attended St Mary's Hall School in Brighton, dedicated their Sydney medals to her memory.
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