And we have another medal! Bronze… no, silver, no actually bronze! Great Britain’s men won an astonishing Olympic BRONZE medal in the gymnastics team final having originally taken silver before a Japanese appeal… what a kick in the balls, robbed by the Jap’s, but who care’s… after not even expecting to even place in the Team event any colour medal is a dream win for these boys! And to be fair the Japanese rightly so deserved their silver swag!
Louis Smith, Sam Oldham, Kristian Thomas, Max Whitlock and Dan Purvis *the fab 5* sealed GB men’s first Olympic team medal since a bronze in 1912.. which basically was a different sport back then, apparently ‘rope climbing’ was part of the competition 100 years ago! Go fella’s… they were gobsmacked and over the moon!
More good news (before we hit the bad) Ben Ainslie continued his charge for his fourth consecutive Gold medal in the Finn class as he ended day 2 in 3rd place with six races left.
A good day for Team GB in the cross country element of the three-day eventing. Team GB now find themselves in silver medal position going into the show jumping. The best bit was of course, all of Zara’s cousins watching in the crowd, the whole bunch… Will, Harry, Kate and the two ugly sisters, I mean Beatrice and Eugene!
Zoe Smith finished 12th in the women’s 58kg weightlifting after watching China’s Li Xueying take the gold. 12th is nothing to shout out, although, it kinda is in this case… Zoe is only 18 and during the competition set a new British clean and jerk record of a whopping 121kg and a new personal best total of 211kg in what was her first taste of Games action in front of electric home support! There was a superb documentary before the Games started about her ‘road to 2012’ and she seemed like the most lovely, down to earth girl out there, humble, but a true talent! BBC iPlayer must still have it!
I don’t wanna jinx this, as so far we’ve had so many ‘dead certs’ not make the cut for gold, but Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins seemed to underlined their status as favourites by setting a new Olympic best time as they qualified for the final of the women’s double scull.
The double world champions destroyed the previous mark, set by Germany 20 years ago, by nearly 5 seconds as they won their heat. All eyes on this event final on Friday for what could be our 1st Gold in the games!
So the bad news, well lets just say it wasn’t our day in the water…
Zero medals in the Aquatics Centre unfortunately, two-time world champion Liam Tancock finished 5th in the 100m backstroke final, which was gut wrenchingly close… Gemma Spofforth also finished 5th in the women’s equivalent event, with favourite Missy Franklin, a 15 year old from the States claiming gold. Robbie Renwick finished 6th in the 200m freestyle and after the race clamied is confident that his time will come in 4 years time. RIO RIO RIO!
The most painful watch of the day was at the diving end of the aquatics centre… It was Tom Daley and Pete Waterfields time to shine and become life long Olympic heroes! Surely they were gonna medal, right? The pair led after the first 3 rounds and looked sharp as hell but a bad execution of the three-and-a-half somersault with tuck in the 4th round dropped them into 4th place! The slightest mistake in this ever so detailed event can cost massively and it bloody well did! The boys narrowly missing out, in possibly the worst position ever. Urghh 4th should be banned! Painful! Anyway.. onwards and upwards for the indiuvual events this weekend… will it be Tom’s destiny to shine in the spotlight on his own, just like out of the water? Got everything crossed for him…. oh and Pete too obviously!
Roll on DAY 4!!
Polly's London 2012 Olympics 