These are the first gold medal won by Chinese in that event. This means Chinese raked in all the five badminton gold medals produced at the London Olympics.

Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen from Denmark won the silver, while the bronze fell into pockets of Jung Jae Sung and Lee Yong Dae from South Korea.

Cai and Fu geared up quickly in the first game to rule the court, where the Danish only started to become aggressive after being outscored 1-4. They impressed the audience by catching up the Chinese pair, who enjoyed 11-6 advantage before the interval, and levelling the scores 12-12. But some mistakes from Boe and Mogensen sent their rival to a 21-16 victory.

In the second game the Danish made desperate attempts. Li Yongbo, China's badminton head coach, shouted from the stand every now and then to remind Cai and Fu to "run quickly". With Cai Yun's last shot missed by the rivals, China won, 21-15.

Cai Yun rushed out of the court for celebration, while his partner Fu shed tears in excitement.

"This is the exact result we aimed for," said Cai, 32. "We have been playing together for over 10 years, and have entered the Olympics three times. Last time in Beijing we only achieved silver, and we were regretful."

The combination of Fu Haifeng's power with his regular partner Cai Yun's speed enabled the pair to become world's leading men's doubles team since 2004. After the Beijing Olympics, however, they seemed to be in a downturn.

"After failure, we were more mature," said Cai. "For match we were not afraid of failure, we tried to enjoy it. We were not scared at all, not nervous. Part of the reason we won was we were full of confidence."

Fu, 28, said the title was like "a dream coming true". "This will probably be the greatest recognition of our badminton career," he said. "Next time, our performance might be even better because we don't have any pressure now that we have achieved this goal. Next time we will play in a different state of mind."

Li Yongbo was delighted because their victory not only signalled a clean sweep of badminton golds at the London Olympics, but also suggested a breakthrough of the men's doubles, as the gold of men's doubles seemed always elusive in the past.

"I hope that these medals could change people's perception on the event," he said. "Many people considered men's doubles the Achilles' heel

for China's national badminton team. In fact, Cai and Fu have harvested 14 world titles. This victory is a new starting point for us."

The disappointed Boe said, "right now it doesn't feel that good. We hoped for more but of course after half an hour or a little bit later today we will probably be satisfid with reaching final and getting silver."

While his partner said they have tried to believe they would win the whole time. "We tried to fight even though it was 14-18, we still tried and told each other to focus."

Finn Traerup-Hansen, coach from the Danish team, said he was "extremely happy" with the result. Earlier Joachim Fischer and Christinna Pedersen have pocketed bronze medals in mixed doubles. "That's extraordinary for a country of 5.5 million people," he said. "So of course we are very happy."