An Olympic Weekend of Wonder

When I said last Friday that excitement levels were likely to shift up a notch with the beginning of the track and field events, even I hadn’t anticipated the incredible performances that were to follow. Anyone who caught the action over the weekend can’t fail to have been impressed by what they saw, and fans of Team GB in particular will have been delighted again and again as our medal tally soared. Whilst I don’t have space here to detail absolutely everything that has happened since my last post, here are just a few of my personal highlights…

– Cyclist Victoria Pendleton won the gold medal for Team GB in the Women’s Keirin event, with China and Hong Kong picking up the silver and bronze.

– In the Women’s Double Sculls rowing event, Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins won gold for Team GB, with Australia taking silver and Poland winning bronze.

– Rebecca Adlington won bronze in the 800m Freestyle swimming event, with Spain winning silver and Katie Ledecky winning gold for the USA.

– Jessica Ennis won gold in the Women’s Heptathlon, with Germany and Russia winning silver and bronze.

– Mohamed ‘Mo’ Farah ran a superb 10,000m race to win gold, leaving the USA and Ethiopia with the silver and bronze positions.

– Greg Rutherford jumped out of his skin to take the Men’s Long Jump gold medal, and the silver and bronze medals were won by Australia and the USA.

– Team GB won gold in the Women’s Team Pursuit track cycling event, with the USA and Canada taking silver and bronze.

– Katherine Copeland and Sophie Hosking won another rowing gold for Team GB by winning the Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls event, whilst Team GB landed yet another gold in the Men’s Four.

– Serena Williams beat Maria Sharipova to win the Women’s Singles tennis event and secure the gold medal for the USA.

– Usain Bolt set a new Olympic Record time of 9.63 seconds to win the gold for Jamaica in the Men’s 100m, with his teammate Yohan Blake taking the silver and Justin Gatlin picking up bronze for the USA.

– Dan Lin beat Malaysia’s Chong Wei Lee to win gold for China in a riveting Men’s Singles badminton final.

– Andy Murray beat Roger Federer to win gold in the Men’s Single tennis final, which no doubt made up for the same opponent beating him in the Wimbledon final just a few weeks ago. Andy Murray and Laura Robson then won silver in the Mixed Doubles final, with gold going to Belarus.

There were plenty more medal winners from plenty more nations that are worthy of note (every medal win is a tremendous achievement) but these were the events that had me on the edge of my seat all weekend.

As for the medals table, right now China is in first place with 61 medals (30 gold, 17 silver and 14 bronze) and the USA is in second place with 60 medals (28 gold, 14 silver and 18 bronze). Great Britain is in third place with a total of 37 medals (16 gold, 11 silver and 10 bronze) so well done Team GB and keep up the fantastic work!

A Golden Day for Team GB

Yesterday turned out to be something of a golden day for Team GB, with two gold medal wins seeing us shoot up from 21st to 14th place on the table. Our first gold medal came in the Women’s Pair rowing event thanks to an excellent performance by Helen Glover and Heather Stanning, and our second came in the Men’s Individual Time Trial cycling event thanks to Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins.

The success of Wiggins in the Time Trial meant that he is now the most decorated British Olympian in history, with a total of seven medals to his credit. That might be a world apart from the record set by Michael Phelps (see yesterday’s post) but it’s still a tremendous achievement that is well worth celebrating.

In addition to the two gold medals that we won on Day 5 of the games, we also managed to pick up a silver medal in the Men’s 200m Breastroke event thanks to 23-year-old Michael Jamieson from Glasgow. It is Jamieson’s birthday this Sunday, so having a silver medal win to celebrate as well will make it especially memorable.

Today is Day 6 of the Games and some big names will be working hard to try and add even more medals to the Team GB collection. Rebecca Adlington is expected to fare well in the Women’s 800m Freestyle swimming event, Sir Chris Hoy will be making an effort to replicate his cycling success at the Beijing 2008 Games and Victoria Pendleton will also be getting on her bike in pursuit of a gold medal. Good luck to those and all other athletes who are competing for Team GB today.

Now that Great Britain is off the mark as far as winning gold medals is concerned, I can only hope that the trend continues. At the time of writing, China is still at the top of the table with a total of 30 medals (17 gold, 9 silver and 4 bronze) and the USA is still in the chasing position with a total of 29 medals (12 gold, 8 silver and 9 bronze). Can another golden day for Team GB help us to close the gap a little? We’ll just have to wait and see…

Enjoy Day 6!