Sunday, 5 August 2012

London 2012 Olympics: Joy of six for Great Britain on Super Saturday

London 2012 Olympics on The Intrepid Reporter
Unofficial sport-by-sport guide - Medal calendar - Full results - The Big 4 - Team sports


SIX gold medals - yes, that's SIX. And, just like the old football vidiprinter announcing a high-scoring win for a team, it still seems barely believable.

The middle Saturday of the London 2012 Games - 4 August - had been billed in its run-up as 'Super Saturday', because of the number of gold medals to be awarded.

However, no one dared to think it would result in Great Britain's best ever day in the entirety of the 116 years of modern Olympic history.

Overall, 25 gold medals were awarded at the XXX Olympiad yesterday. Incredibly, nearly a quarter of them went to Britons.

They came in three disciplines - rowing, cycling and athletics. And it all began at the Eton Dorney rowing lake in Berkshire where the team there added to its record Olympic haul with a successful defence of its men's four title and victory for the first time in the women's lightweight double sculls. Simply oar-some!

Those two medals, before 1pm, put Great Britain into third in the medal table, behind only the powerhouses of United States and China. It will hopefully be a position they will not relinquish.

Whether that is actually the case or not, the slightly desperate front-page headline from The Sun newspaper on Tuesday - "Wanted: Gold Medal" - is rather redundant now.

For, ever since that early sense of panic, Britain has been on a roll with five medals on Wednesday, six on Thursday, seven on Friday and another seven yesterday.

It was off to the velodrome after the rowing as Great Britain added another gold in its other recognisably strong sport - cycling.

Indeed, this was a cycling masterclass from Laura Trott, Dani King and Jo Rowsell who crushed the United States to win the women's team pursuit in 3:14.051.

Remarkably, that time was their sixth successive world record. It had already been another great day.

But, then, as the clock ticked past nine, the greatest evening in British athletics history began.

It starred Sheffield heptathlete Jessica Ennis - though, to be honest, she had already done most of the hard work.

Golden girl Ennis led the heptathlon competition from the start after setting personal bests in the 100m hurdles (12.54s) and 200m (22.83s) on day one.

She also produced creditable performances in her slightly weaker events - the high jump and the shot-put - and that pattern was repeated on day two in the javelin, where she scored another PB, and the long jump.

Going into the final event - the 800m - Ennis had a lead of 188 points. Short of tweaking a hamstring and having the hobble around, the title was hers - although, just for good measure, she won it anyway in 2:08.65.

Ennis - with a personal best overall points total - thus justified her position as the poster girl of the London 2012 Olympics and proved that, while some may wilt under the pressure, the very best rise to the occasion.

Of course, there are greater expectations for certain athletes as compared to others, and it would be fair to say that few people had Greg Rutherford down for long jump gold before the Olympics began.

Nevertheless, that is what the 25-year-old delivered after his fourth round leap of 8.31m was enough to beat off his main competition from Australian Mitchell Watt (8.16m) and American Will Claye (8.12m).

The unexpected nature of Rutherford's victory made it even more special as the national anthem blasted out once again for the starry-eyed 80,000 crowd at the Olympic Stadium.

Then, to complete an astonishing night in east London, Mo Farah applied the coup de grace by becoming the first ever British male to win the 10,000m after running an excellent race tactically.

Having kept pace throughout with the Kenyans and the Ethiopians, Farah moved up to third with five laps to go and took to the front alongside defending champion Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia and American Galen Rupp.

At the bell, Farah made his first decisive burst and led by a metre and then he kicked on again in the final straight to go clear and make yet more history.

Britain's six gold medals in one day beat the previous marker of five set in 1908 - one of the previous two occasions on which London has hosted the Games.
 
But, back to these Games, and the best thing is that British competitors do not show any sign of letting up.

For a start, Farah also goes in the 5,000m next weekend and his coach Alberto Salazar promised 11 months ago that "when we've done the work, [he] will be a contender for both gold medals".

Before then, there are two definite medals to come in the tennis at Wimbledon after what has been an excellent week for Andy Murray.

The Wimbledon finalist has reached the final of men's singles (2pm, today), where he will again face Roger Federer, as well as the mixed doubles with Laura Robson (4pm, today).

Meanwhile, in the sailing, Ben Ainslie is in striking distance of a fourth gold medal in the Finn class, and in the Star class, duo Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson enjoy an eight-point buffer.

It is the last day of competition in both events and we should know if Britain has one, or even two, more gold by 2.30pm this afternoon.

As it stands this morning, Great Britain is on target to surpass its haul from four years ago in Beijing of 19 golds and 47 medals overall.

Indeed, after the extraordinary events in the Olympic Stadium last night, Team GB now stands clear in third in the medal table with 14 golds and 29 medals overall.

Hat's off once more, then, to Alex Gregory, Andrew Triggs Hodge, Pete Reed, and Tom James in the men's four; Katherine Copeland and Sophie Hosking in the women's lightweight double sculls; Trott, King, and Rowsell in the women's cycling; and Ennis, Rutherford, and Farah in the Olympic Stadium.

The superlatives can barely do justice to your achievements yesterday. For this British sports fan, Saturday 4 August 2012 was a golden day and will simply never be forgotten.

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