Sunday 5 August 2012

Olympics - day 8

If we were wondering why it was called Super Saturday, we're not any more!!

  • GOLD - rowing - men's coxless fours
  • GOLD - rowing - women's lightweight double sculls
  • SILVER - rowing - men's lightweight double sculls
  • GOLD - cycling - women's team pursuit
  • GOLD - athletics - heptathlon - Jessica Ennis
  • GOLD - athletics - long jump - Greg Rutherford
  • GOLD - athletics - 10,000m - Mo Farah
So many amazing stories in amongst the seven medals of the day, it's difficult to know where to start, so here are just few thoughts:
  • Jessica Ennis has been truly amazing over the last couple of days. Her picture has been everywhere over the last few years, and she's been called the face of the games. The pressure on her must have been amazing, and still she delivers the gold.
  • Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter who won today's silver medal. You guys are heroes, and have nothing to be sad or sorry about. Hopefully you will see that when the disappointment of missing gold fades. The post race interview was heart-rending stuff. You even had Inverdale in tears!
  • Five events in the velodrome so far and four golds for Team GB. Probably would have been five without Friday's disqualification. The women's pursuit team took the rest of the field apart - new world records every time they raced.
  • Records falling all other the place - first Team GB long jump medal for almost fifty years, and first ever 10,000m gold. When we'd got to five golds, the comments came in that the last time Team GB did that was in 1908. No mention of whether six has ever happened?
Football provided the only disappointment of the day (same as yesterday) as the men's team went out to South Korea on penalties, but we can be assured of more medals tomorrow, in the sailing, at Wimbledon (where Murray will be in two finals after he and Laura Robson had a great day, winning both their quarter and semi-finals), and no doubt at the velodrome again.

And today's report really should end on a non Team GB note, as the greatest Olympian of all time bowed out on a high this evening. Michael Phelps helped the USA 4 x 100m medley relay team to a gold medal, ending his Olympic career with a truly staggering 22 medals, 18 of them gold.

TEAM GB
Today: 6 gold, 1 silver
So far: 14 gold, 7 silver, 8 bronze
Medal table position: 3rd