Team GB secured six gold medals on a day that hasn't been matched for over a hundred years, cruising into third in the medals table and showing no signs of slowing down. It all began this morning when Katherine Copeland and Sophie Hosking claimed GB's first ever Women's Lightweight Double Sculls gold medal. The British pairing finished over two seconds ahead of Dongxiang Xu and Wenyi Huang of China.
That was followed with the Men's Four gold, making it three consecutive golds in the event. Alex Gregory, Tom James, Pete Reed and Andrew Triggs Hodge finished just under two seconds ahead of the Australian foursome. It could well have been three golds in the rowing today when Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter lead in most of the Men's Lightweight Double Sculls. But, with 250m left, the Danish pairing of Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist overtook the Brits to finish .61 seconds ahead.
Britain's third gold became their fourth in the Cycling as we took the Women's Team Pursuit event with yet another World Record. Dani King, Laura Trott and Joanna Rowsell set a time of 3:14:051 to out class the Americans and the Canadians. The gold is even more special for Rowsell who suffers from alopecia.
The other three gold medals were our first in the Athletics events. After her amazing display yesterday, Jessica Ennis rounded off her fantastic Heptathlon with a score of 6955, the fifth highest score in Olympics history and a new British and Commonwealth record. The Sheffield girl finished 306 points clear of silver medallist Lilli Schwarzkopf of Germany. Ennis has now put herself alongside Bradley Wiggins and many others as candidates for Sports Personality of the Year.
Ennis' gold was quickly followed up by Mo Farah who put on a fantastic performance in the Men's 10,000m. Farah finished .48 seconds ahead of USA's Galen Rupp to cap a brilliant two years for the athlete. GB's final gold medal of the day came from a surprise source, Greg Rutherford from Milton Keynes. Rutherford managed to finish .15m ahead of Mitchell Watt from Australia in the Long Jump.
All eyes will be on Andy Murray tomorrow who has the opportunity to win a further two gold medals for GB. Murray will play against Roger Federer in the Men's Singles and then team-up with Laura Robson who will take on Victoria Azarenka and Max Mirnyi from Belarus in the Mixed Doubles Final.
Robson and Murray started the day against Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Stosur in the quarter finals. The Brits took the first set 6-3 before the Australians responded with a 6-3 set victory of their own. This produced a Champions Tie-break which Murray and Robson won 10-8 to reach the semi-finals.
A couple of hours later, Robson and Murray were on court again, this time against Sabine Lisicki and Christopher Kas of Germany. The British pairing once again stormed out of the gate quickly, taking the first set 6-1. The second set then went to a tie-break, which Murray missed a winner that caused the Germans to take it 9-7. So, for a second time today, Robson and Murray were once again enthralled in a Champions Tie-break. At 7-7, Britain broke the Kas serve to lead 8-7 before Robson held both of her serves to win the set 10-7 to put GB's name in tomorrow's final and a guaranteed silver medal.
The Women's Tennis event came to an end today with Serena Williams securing a career Golden Slam after thrashing Maria Sharapova. Williams took the first set to love before Sharapova managed to take a game in the second set. Azarenka took the bronze medal with a 6-3 6-4 victory over Russia's Maria Kirilenko.
The Bryan brothers went home with the Men's Doubles gold, making it two golds for Team USA. Bob and Mike faced Michael Llodra and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France in the final. The Bryan's took the first set 6-4 before taking the second set 7-2 in the tie-break. Fellow Frenchmen, Julien Benneteau and Richard Gasquet took the bronze medal with a 7-6 6-2 win over David Ferrer and Feliciano Lopez of Spain.
The heartbreak of the day once again came from a penalty shoot-out in the football. The men's team faced South Korea and found themselves 1-0 down just before the half hour mark when Sunderland's Ji Dong-Won leathered a shot past Jack Butland. GB levelled seven minutes when they were awarded a penalty for handball, Aaron Ramsey stepped up and just squeezed his effort through the keeper.
Five minutes before half-time, GB were awarded a second penalty when Daniel Sturridge was brought down in the box. Ramsey again stepped-up but this time his effort was saved. The score remained 1-1 and the dreaded penalty shoot-out was upon us. The shoot-out stood at 4-4 before Daniel Sturridge stepped up and had his shot saved. Celtic's Ki Sung-Yeung placed South Korea's fifth attempt past Butland to dump GB out of the event.
No comments:
Post a Comment