CASSIE Patten from St Cleer won an Olympic bronze medal in Beijing this week, finishing third in a gruelling two-hour 10km open water race.

Cassie and her GB team-mate and best friend Keri-Anne Payne set the pace throughout the 10,000m race, and were only overhauled in the final 750m by Russian world champion Larisa Ilchenko, who beat second-placed Keri-Anne by just one and a half seconds to claim gold. Cassie's third-placed time was 1hr 59 mins 31 secs

Cassie, 21, revealed she had her feet tugged back in the closing stages.

'I was quite annoyed, it's not sportsmanship when you pull on someone's feet,' she said.

Fourth-placed German Angela Maurer provoked her wrath by pulling her leg during the approach to the line, prompting Cassie to confront her on the water's edge after the race.

'At the end of the race there was a lot of emotion and some things do happen in races which aren't really good sportsmanship but that's all I'm going to say,' said Cassie.

'At the end of the day I'm the one sitting here with the medal.'