Danvers was almost caught on the line by the fast-finishing Anastasiya Rabchenyuk of Ukraine and waited for confirmation from the giant scoreboard that she had held on to set a new personal best of 53.84sec.

Jamaica's Melaine Walker won gold in a new Olympic record of 52.64 ahead of American Sheena Tosta, completing an incredible few minutes for the Caribbean island as it came a few moments after Usain Bolt had won the 200m in a world record.

The 30-year-old Danvers, who is based in Los Angeles with her American husband, had had a difficult year and her selection for these Games was criticised by a number of people.

She said: "I am elated to get this medal.

"It's been easily one of the worst seasons of my life and one of the best at the same time.

"Training was going brilliantly and then I got an Achilles problem in May that rendered me unable to run even 50m.

"At that point I got really stressed out but I got back to London and they fixed it in a week and a half.

"Then in my first session back I tore my hamstring. It was just one thing after another.

"Ten days before the European Cup I pulled my hamstring, the doctor said it should be fine but in the race we got to 150m to go and I just could not respond.

"I said, 'This is not normal' but they said, 'Don't worry it's just a lack of training.'

"I then ran at the trials, got beaten, and the same thing happened, my body felt it was shutting down with 150m to go.

"We did a blood test and found out my white blood cell count was 3.6, with the range being 3.5-10 and 3.5 being really low.

"That was the reason why I was running so bad and I've had two more hamstring strains since then but I was watching that Colin Jackson show about nature or nurture and I noticed how strong he was mentally no matter what happened and I thought, 'Do not give up on yourself mentally.'

"If you mentally stay on top of it your never know what your body can do and we managed to pull it together at the right time."