Olympic Round Up: Day 6

Contributed by Emma Booth.
Regional Director, USA Sport Group.

Back to Olympic Round Up: Day 3

With the London Olympics nearly a week in, here is a roundup of my top three sports in days 4, 5 & 6.

I want to ride my bicycle
Kazakhstani Alexandr Vinokurov took gold in the Men’s Road Race, with Columbian Uran Uran second and Norwegian Kristoff third. Britain, who were expected to get a medal, unfortunately only had their highest placing at 29th with Mark Cavendish. The women held more good fortune for the Brits with Eli Armitstead taking a fantastic silver medal home behind Marianne Vos of the Netherlands, and Olga Zabelinskaya took the bronze. The men’s and women’s time trial saw both GBR and USA clinch gold medals; Kris Armstrong in the women for the States, with Zabelinskaya (the same one as above!) claiming her second bronze, behind German Judith Arndt. And in the men’s race, Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins finished first for Britain, with fellow Brit Christopher Froome coming into bronze medal position behind another German, Tony Martin.

Not sitting on the fence

There have been 18 medals handed out in fencing so far, the most impressive of these however, come in the Men’s Individual Epee and the Men’s Individual Foil. Venezuela have only their second ever Olympic Champion through Ruben Limardo Gascon, who beat Norwegian Piasecki Bartosz in the final to claim gold in the Individual Epee, with Korean Jinsun Jung taking bronze. In the Individual Foil we have an even greater story, with a fencer from the continent of Africa claiming their first ever Olympic fencing medal. Egyptian Alaaeldin Abouelkassem maybe should have got gold, but was pipped at the post by Sheng Lei, with another Korean, Byungchul Choi taking bronze. The Italian’s dominated the Women’s Individual Foil with Di Francisca, Errigo and Vezzali taking gold, silver and bronze respectively.

Gym Class Heroes

Controversy surrounded the Men’s Team Event in Artistic Gymnastics with Great Britain and Japan at the center of it. Japan took to the pommel horse, looking set for silver, when Kohei Uchimura’s dismount didn’t go to plan. The final results saw GBR get silver, Ukraine bronze, with China taking top spot. However, the Japanese asked for an enquiry into the scoring, which was accepted and the medal positions were switched… China still top, but Japan in second, Britain down to third and poor old Ukraine, knocked into fourth. The Women’s Team Event was all stars and stripes with a great victory by Team USA; winning by over five points from closest contenders Russia, with Romania in third. Danell Leyva gave USA bronze in the men’s individual all round final, with the aforementioned Uchimura finishing top. But Gabrielle Douglas was the star of the women’s show; adding an individual gold this afternoon to her team gold from Tuesday, narrowly beating a tearful Viktoria Komova. An emotional victory for the 16 year old, and well deserved. But spare a thought for Aly Raisman who lost out on bronze after a tiebreak to Mustafina, when they tied on overall points.

Olympic Round Up: Day 10