Great Britain handball star Kathryn Fudge described the moment she scored her country's first Olympic Games goal as the "best feeling in the world".
The Bury winger was a part of the Team GB side that went down fighting to medal-hopefuls Montenegro in a 31-19 defeat at the Copper Box and she threw in their opening goal on their Olympic debut.
Fudge, recruited to the squad by the Sporting Giants scheme fronted by Sir Steve Redgrave, went on to notch a total of four goals and revealed she thought the Olympic experience was everything she hoped it would be.
"It was the best feeling in the world, that is what it's all about," she said, referring to her opening strike.
"I just thought, 'Wow', to score the first goal was amazing. This is the best of the best. We have been working for this for four, five or six years. Some people have waited all their lives to get here, it was a brilliant experience.
"The atmosphere was utterly amazing, everyone was just so behind us, the crowd seemed to really get into it whenever we were attacking."
The defeat was not unexpected for Team GB, who have only been in existence for six years, and they face another test when they return to the Copper Box tomorrow afternoon to face Russia.
Fudge is keen to express that their performance is the most important factor and has urged the home crowd, who are mostly experiencing handball for the first time, not to get too disheartened if they struggle.
"We are just trying to play more consistently," she added. "When we have played Montenegro before we played well for 30 minutes, this time we did it for 45 so we are moving in the right direction. They are one of the best teams in the world, they are going for a medal.
"When we play we go for our goals and our targets. We are not unrealistic, we are playing the best teams in the world, we don't go into them thinking we are going to win.
"It's about what we do, we want to be competitive and I think we did that yesterday.
"Russia are quite a big team and they are all a bit taller and weigh a few more kilos than we do so we just have to improve our defending and see where that goes.
"We want to get the home crowd on our side and stay in the game for as long as we can."