Royal Mail's first Gold Medal stamps revealed

Royal Mail's first two Gold Medal stamps will be available by lunchtime today to celebrate Helen Glover and Heather Stanning's victory in the women's pair and Bradley Wiggins' triumph in the men's time trial.

Glover and Stanning's win makes the pair the first all-female sports team to appear on a Royal Mail stamp as well as the first ever British gold medallists in women's Olympic Rowing.

Wiggins' gold, which came less than two weeks after his victory in the Tour de France, makes him the most decorated British Olympian of all time with seven medals, including four gold.

Following his victory, which was not confirmed until around 4pm yesterday, the Royal Mail design team had just one hour to review the images, locate the most fitting and atmospheric, crop and refine the photo, add Bradley’s name, then position within the templated design of the six-stamp miniature sheet.

Royal Mail announced its plan to produce a celebratory stamp within 24 hours for every Team GB gold medal winner back in April and so yesterday's batch will hopefully be the first of many.

The two gold medal stamps will go on sale in over 500 Post Office branches at lunchtime today, while Royal Mail has also pledged to paint a single post box gold in each of the athletes' home towns to celebrate their triumph.

An additional 4,700 post offices will receive the Gold Medal stamps within a week.