Wednesday 1 August 2012

Olympics Day 5: Finally golden

It took five days, but British competitors finally claimed gold today in two key events, both in record-breaking style. First, Helen Grover and Heather Stanning won the women's pair rowing, as expected, becoming the first British women to win an Olympic title.

Next up, Bradley Wiggins won the men's individual time trial, carrying on the fine form that saw him win the Tour de France barely 10 days ago. In fact, no one has ever won both the Tour and Olympic gold in the same year. And this gold medal takes his total Olympic medal count to seven, which is more than any other Brit has ever earned. It's no wonder that people in the streets are wearing his trademark red sideburns in tribute. Although he did look ridiculous sitting on that winner's throne at Hampton Court.

The other big event today was the men's individual all-round gymnastics title, which went as expected to Japan's Kohei Uchimura. Less predictable was the scrum of able competitors going for silver and bronze - everyone had at least one key error, which made it a real nailbiter to watch. In the end, Germany's Marcel Nguyen claimed silver and America's Danell Leyva won bronze.

Today felt like a day off for me, as I was able to veg out at home all day and catch up on some film review writing and website updating, watch quite a lot of the competition live, and then work an evening Olympics news shift from home. The weather was nice and warm , with sun shining in the open windows. I hope it stays that way since I'll be out and about all over town tomorrow.


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