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AS IT HAPPENED

As it happened: London 2012 Olympics, day five

We followed Ireland’s hopes in the boxing and in the K1 slalom finals, and there was plenty more to keep us occupied.

WE’RE READY TO go for day five in London. As you might expect, it’s going to be a busy one.

Send us your thoughts and comments on all the action. E-mail us at sport@thescore.ie, tweet us @thescore_ie, post to our Facebook wall or leave a comment below. Stamped addressed envelopes not required.

Is it August? I hadn’t noticed. Well, at least we can stop complaining about the complete absence of an Irish summer and start focusing on how amazing the autumn weather is going to be.

But let’s not worry about that for now. Who needs the sun when you can sit in front of the tellybox all day and gorge yourself on an absolute feast of sporting action?

Day five of the London 2012 jamboree is just getting underway. I’m Niall Kelly and I’d encourage you to stay with us here on TheScore.ie for the duration. Unless, you know, you like missing important things…

If you’ve been living under a rock (or not glued to the television) for the last 24 hours, you may have missed a bit. Before we get started today, here are the five major things to take from yesterday’s action:

But enough looking back, let’s look forward to Wednesday. Here’s when the Irish will be in action:

  • Sailing: The Irish boats — Annalise Murphy; Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern; and James Espey are back in action from 12pm in Weymouth.
  • Canoe slalom: Eoin Rheinisch, fourth in Beijing four years ago, goes in the semi-finals of the K1 slalom from 1.30pm.
  • Boxing: John Joe Nevin meets Kazakhstan’s Kanat Abutalipov in the last 16 round of the 56 kg from 2pm.
  • Cycling: David McCann will be in time trial action from 2.15pm

The cycling time trial will be one of the highlights of day five, even more so considering that Team GB’s Bradley Wiggins is the heavy favourite to take home the gold. Yesterday, Wiggo described the competition as “a piece of piss” compared to the Tour de France which really didn’t endear himself to too many people in TheScore.ie HQ. We’re all about humility.

Here’s the preview of today’s TT action >

As we’ve been doing for the last few days, we turn our attention to the pool first. The heats of the women’s 100m freestyle are already underway. We’ll keeping an eye on the last couple of heats in particular where medal contenders Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Sarah Sjostrom and Aliaksandra Herasimenia will be in action. London’s engravers must be delighted that they don’t have to try to fit those names on to the back of the medals…

MEILUTYTE WATCH: Everybody’s favourite Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte, winner of the 100m breaststroke earlier in the week, is up now in heat four. She finishes fifth in a time of 56.33 but that’s not going to be enough for a place in the semi-finals.

While we wait for heat five, a quick aside. Watching Friday night’s athlete parade in the opening ceremony, there were one or two countries that I’ll admit I never heard of before. One of them — Comoros — has just seen one of its three athletes compete in heat one. Ayouba Ali Sihame finished third, but unfortunately it was in a three-person heat.

China’s Yi Tang sets the qualifiying bar at 53.28, winning heat five from Jeanette Ottesen and Jessica Hardy. We’re getting down to the business end of things now with a lot of the genuine medal contenders in heats six and seven.

Our seventh and final heat finishes Schlanger, Herasimenia, Kromowidjojo, Franklin in that order. They’re all safely through to tonight’s semi-finals. Tang is the fastest qualifier but there have been no real surprises or shocks here.

If you’re one of those people who simply can’t bear to miss a thing, might I recommend that you follow @medalalert on Twitter. Five to 10 minutes before a medal event starts, you’ll get a tweet to let you know what’s coming.

Of course, if you don’t use Twitter, you won’t care at all about those last two sentences. Please accept my apologies.

We’re HUGE Off the Ball fans here at TheScore.ie. A couple of unnamed individuals have even been known to deliberately avoid US Murph’s Tuesday night slot just so they can listen to it on a Wednesday morning on the bus into work.

You can imagine our delight when last night’s slot featured a tribute to Ireland’s greatest ever basketball commentator, the legendary Timmy McCarthy. We were even more delighted when it popped up on YouTube this morning. Enjoy!

It’s time for the heats of the men’s 200m backstroke. Ryan Lochte is a 2/5 shot with the bookies to add another individual gold to his collection but to do so, he’ll have to fend off Ryosuke Irie and team-mates Tyler Clary among others.

No bother for Tyler Clary who wins heat three in 1:56.24. That’s the fastest qualifying time so far, although Gabor Balog of Hungary wasn’t that much slower in winning heat two (1:56.98).

Ryosuke Irie takes heat four ahead of Jan Philip Glania and Mitch Larkin in 1:56.81. Don’t go anywhere though because here comes Ryan Lochte…

No bother for Lochte either as he swans through to win the final heat in 1:56.36. Nothing to worry about if you have him backed at 2/5.

After hyping pretty much every medal prospect for the first four days and still ending up without a gold to show for it, it appears that the British public have learned nothing from their mistakes (or from 46 years of watching England at international soccer tournaments),

No, the green and pleasant land appears to be firmly in throes of yellow fever ahead of this afternoon’s Olympic time trial. There’s no denying that Tour de France winner and SIX-TIME Olympic medallist Bradley Wiggins has every chance of adding another gold to his tally — but is there any need for the sideburned smurfs?

Wiggo’s Team Sky Team GB partner Mark Cavendish tweeted this earlier today.

If tennis is your thing, there’s plenty to look forward to at Wimbledon today: Britain’s Brave Andy Murray v Marcos Baghdatis; Novak Djokovic v Lleyton Hewitt; and Serena Williams v Vera Zvonareva to name but a few.

Hopefully it’s a little less miserable in SW19 than it is in Dublin this morning, otherwise we’ll be seeing those “Rain stops play” headlines before too long.

Speaking of Phelps, last night was one of those nights when Olympic bureaucracy robbed us of a beautiful moment in order to make sure that protocol was followed to the letter. Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina — formerly the most successful Olympian of all time before Phelps claimed his 19th medal in the 4x200m freestyle — was in London’s Aquatic Centre last night to watch history unfold.

The New York Times reports that Latynina, 77, hoped to present Phelps with his record-breaking medal but organisers refused to allow it. A chance for a wonderfully symbolic sporting moment, the handing down of history from one sporting great to another, squandered. Why? Why? WHY?

(I’m going to stop now before the keyboard breaks.)

Back in the pool, the heats of the women’s 200m breaststroke are just done. America’s Rebecca Soni is the fastest qualifier in 2:21.40 with Rikke Pedersen of Denmark (2:22.69) and Japan’s Satomi Suzuki (2:23.22) all putting in fast times.

Strong, strong stuff from Paul Kimmage on Off The Ball last night. Here’s what he had to say about Nico Roche, Dan Martin and David McCann’s performance in the Olympic road race last Saturday.

I’m trying to be as polite as possible. There are a lot of Irish riders, very average Irish riders, who have represented us at the Olympics over the years. What they did give however was 100% commitment to the jersey.

That is not something I could extend to Nicolas Roche or Daniel Martin on Saturday. I thought that was one of the poorest performances I’ve ever seen.

Read more of Kimmage’s comments here >

Some motivational words from one Irish Olympic medallist to (hopefully) another. John Joe is in the ring shortly after 2pm this afternoon.

A guy called Michael Phelps has just been in action in the heats of the men’s 200m individual medley, as has a guy called Ryan Lochte. You may have heard of them?

If those heats are anything to go by, we should be in for a cracker provided both make it through safely to tomorrow night’s final. Phelps is second in heat four, won by Kosuke Hagino in 1:58.22. Lochte, not long out of the pool since his backstroke heat, cruises in to win heat five in 1:58.03.

Annalise Murphy will be aiming to extend her winning streak when race five of the laser radial sailing gets underway from 12pm.

Brendan Sliney from Cork has just emailed in with this. Any comments, e-mail them in to sport@thescore.ie.

What a crying shame we have been getting such woeful TV coverage of Annalise’s exploits. What she has been doing so far is phenomenal.

To-day is going to be huge for her as she is going to be a marked lady.

I reckon there will be a concerted effort at the start by other boats knock her off stride.  Hopefully she can handle it.

We saw Anthony McGuinness (@anthonymcg) chatting about this on Twitter earlier today. It’s the Olympic-themed creation from everybody’s favourite craft brewer Brewdog, named “Never Mind the Anabolics.”

Now we want one.

This is Never Mind the Anabolics. A 6.5% India Pale Ale infused with creatine, guarana, ginseng, gingo, maca powder, matcha tea and kola nut.

It is about time the greatest sporting event on the planet was not sponsored by fast food companies, sugary fizzy drinks producers or monolithic multi-national brewers. A burger, can of fizzy pop and an industrial lager are not the most ideal preparation for the steeple chase or the dressage (for human or horse).

So we decided to give the athletes something that was going to make them happier and better. A way to relax before a big event and at the same time increase the chances of winning.

This summer, revive the spirit of the people’s Games from the comfort of your favourite bar.

Never Mind the Anabolics takes its lead from the relentless marketing campaigns of global fast food chains and international mass production breweries that replace the sporting spirit with a fast buck, a greasy burger and an ugly plastic cup of insipid, fizzy, yellow lager.

Dedication, training and passion are things of the past; Kick back, put your giant torch down and let our performance enhancing ingredients do the hard work.

It’s not the taking part, it’s the winning that counts.

Team Ireland did brilliantly on the final day of the eventing competition yesterday, finishing fifth in the team event before Aoife Clark went to finish an excellent seventh in the individual standings.

That’s not the end of Ireland’s equestrian involvement though. One of our showjumpers, Billy Twomey, has penned this brief Olympic update on his site today.

The Olympic week has finally arrived.

Tinka’s Serenade feels on great form. She has been having some time at home working in the mornings and having some time in the field in the afternoons, she travels down to Greenwich Park in the morning.

The trot up for the show jumpers is tommorrow afternoon and we have a warm up round on Friday.

Competition begins in earnest on Saturday.

I went to the openning [sic] ceremony last Friday the event looks stunning and I cant wait to get going!

I will let you know how I get on!

India’s Kashyap Parupalli leaps to play a shot against Sri Lanka’s Niluka Karunaratne in the men’s badminton singles this morning.

(Saurabh Das/AP/Press Association Images)

With BBC’s jingoism ringing in my ears, I can’t help but notice that Britain also expect to win gold in the rowing today. Helen Glover and Heather Stanning are currently leading the women’s pair medal race through the first 500 metres.

Glover and Stanning lead by 3.5 seconds through the half-way point. I think the BBC commentator might need to sit down — he’s getting very, very excited. Helium balloon-squeaky excited.

GB lead by five seconds from New Zealand with 500 metres to go. They can’t mess this up, can they? Can they?

TEAM GB WIN THEIR FIRST GOLD MEDAL OF LONDON 2012! It’s Helen Glover and Heather Stanning in the women’s pair. They tired slightly towards the end but they were never going to give that up. Australia in second, New Zealand take bronze.

The first Irish competitors of the day are up and running. Annalise Murphy starts race five of the laser radial while in the men’s 49er, Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern get their day underway.

The start of the laser radial has been abandoned so the boats will have to reset and try again in a couple of minutes.

Seaton and McGovern are 16th to the first mark, 35 seconds behind USA who lead.

These are the two most famous ladies in Britain at the moment. Congratulations Helen Glover and Heather Stanning.

(Stephen Pond/PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Are Britain going to be celebrating more medals very shortly? The men’s eight final is underway in Eton Dorney.

Germany lead GB by 4/100s of a second through the halfway mark. It’s like 1966 all over again.

Only 0.02 seconds separate them with 500m to go.

GERMANY TAKE GOLD ahead of Canada in second. Team GB ran out of puff in that final 500 metres and in the end were slightly lucky to hang on for third and bronze.

49er: It’s 12th place for Seaton and McGovern in Race 5, 1:34 behind winners France.

Patrick McCarry here – giving Niall Kelly a well-earned candy and cake break. Annalise Murphy – the girl that has got us all murmuring – is underway out in Weymouth, a gigantic stone’s throw away from London (four and a half hours).

Steve Redgrave uncomfortably sitting on the fence as he tries to interview the rowers that undoubtedly look up to him as a hero and remain objective with a BBC microphone in his hand.

“They are mega, mega stars. They way that they have conducted themselves in the last two years has been immense,” he says.

Murphy is currently lying in seventh place in her fifth race of these Olympic games.

Seaton and McGovern are placed sixth overall after their 12th place finish about 30 minutes ago. Lizzy Armistead of Great Britain is away in the time trial. She took silver in the cycling road race on Sunday.

Some nice banter coming in about Phelan Hill – the cox of Team GB’s bronze medal-winning rowers:

Annalise Murphy is in seventh now but her closest rivals are all upstream/watery expanse from her. As for James Espey, he is in 39th place after very early doors of his outing at Weymouth.

Eoin Rheinisch’s semi-final will get going in about 20 minutes.

Pia Sunstedt of Finland is leading the women’s cycling time trial in its early stages. Her time is 39 seconds better than the next best rider but some big names to come.

Don’t ask me how Annalise Murphy is managing to tweet and sail:

Annalise Murphy is sixth coming up to the end of her sail – the winning streak was always going to be tough to keep going. 20 seconds behind so now it is all about passing a few rivals and trying to get out of the race with as many points as possible.

Remember I told you about Sundstedt of Finland in the women’s cycling time trial? Good. Well she has been relegated fifth. Olga Zabelinskaya of Russia has slashed her time by more than three minutes. Lizzie Armistead of GB is in fourth so no more medals for her.

Novak Djokovic has just started his tennis encounter with Lleyton Hewitt. Eoin Rheinisch’s semi-final is five minutes away.

Evi van Acker of Belgium wins Race 5 in the sailing and Annalise Murphy finishes eighth. She should still be leading overall though. Here comes Eoin…

HUGE NEWS! Eoin Rheinish misses Gate 19 in his kayaking semi-final after overshooting it. His Olympics are over. He was a couple of seconds behind Benjamin Boukpeti’s time to beat but got in a spin and couldn’t get back to the gate. Shame.

Rheinisch’s only hope would be if seven others miss gates too. His time is 1:53.98 and he is fourth out of four of the semi-finalists to finish so far.

Gold! The women’s cycling time trial is over and Kristin Armstrong of America wins. She beat Judith Arnt of Germany by over 15 seconds and Russian cyclist Olga Zabelinskaya is third.

Our ‘friend we made today’ from Sunday, Amber Neben of America finishes seventh. Remarkable life story there but the movie producers won’t be calling now.

The men’s 49ers – Seaton and McGovern – finished 19th in their race so they should fall down the pecking order a bit.

John Joe Nevin is next up on the Irish sporting menu. He is a confident chap but he comes up against a tough foe this afternoon. Bernard Dunne, unsurprisingly, is talking up his chances. Unswerving belief from the Clondalkin pundit!

Alright, let’s do this thing. Niall Kelly back in the saddle as John Joe makes his way to the ring to the strains of Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough. Let’s hope JJ carries that message into his performance.

Opening bell – here we go.

Cagey start by both fighters but John Joe leads 5-2 at the opening bell. A little bit generous perhaps, but no harm…

Another good round for JJ. The Kazakh is clearly dangerous but Nevin is landing the cleaner shots. He leads 10-5 with one round remaining.

That should do the trick. The final bell goes and John Joe turns to his corner in celebration. Another solid final round and we’ll just wait for confirmation of the final scores.

NEVIN WINS! The judges score it 15-10 and John Joe Nevin is through to the quarter-finals. On Sunday night, he will fight for an Olympic medal. Excellent performance against a tough opponent in Abutalipov.

While we were glued to John Joe, confirmation came through from Lee Valley that Eoin Rheinisch has finished 14th out of 15 in the semi-finals of the men’s K1 slalom. Desperately unlucky for Eoin but with only 10 places in this afternoon’s final, his Olympics is over.

The Weymouth wind is wreaking havoc in the sixth race of the laser radial class, where Annalise Murphy is struggling badly at present. She’s well down the field in 24th place at the second mark, 2:19 behind race leader Veronika Fenclova. We’ll keep a very close eye on her progress.

Annalise has picked up a couple of places at the next mark but she’s still 22nd, 2:16 behind Fenclova.

Right, Patrick McCarry back with you for the next while. We’ll keep you up to speed with Annalise Murphy in Race 6. Here is a Twitter account - @Annalise_Murphy – that might come in handy over the next few days (Annalise’s brother is looking after it for her while she is sailing the bejeepers out of it).

Lleyton Hewitt has taken the first set off Novak Djokovic. In this best-of-three format, the Serb can’t show off his amazing endurance skills. Not deeply yet but he is in trouble.

David McCann is just done with his time trial and he has finished third in a time of 25:43.27. The fastest time has been posted by Magno Prado Nazaret, he clocked in at 25:08.21.

Just back from a FIRE DRILL! We traipsed out Paddy last (that’s still an expression, right?) in a time over 14:06.84 after the bells started whining. No medals coming for this sorry bunch either.

McCann has slipped out of the top five after a New Zealand cyclist called Jack Bauer rockets in with a time of 24:44.40. Jack Bauer – 24 -good grief that’s some synergy!

Check out the last three to hit the road: Tony Martin, Bradley Wiggins and Fabian Cancellara. Road race is heating up.

Luis Leon Sanchez Gil – you unfornature Spanish man. His sleek, lightweight bike, which probably coats more than an Audi A3 with a tape deck, is banjaxed as he sets off. His time trial is done and dusted after five seconds.

Jack Bauer: Loves a cycle. (TAMMIE ARROYO/UK Press)

The Women’s 25m Pistol Final is coming up at 3.30pm and we will drop in on the sulphuric action after the time trial concludes. Sanchez Gil’s chain broke as he came off the ramp. That cheese is tough sometimes.

FIRE DRILL AGAIN!!!!

We are back. Much better this time around – a new PB.

Ok, so Annalise Murphy had her worst finish to date – 19th in Race 6 – but she is allowed to discard one of her outings so that will be it. She is still first place overall after six races, on plus 12 points. Van Acker on Belgium is two points back and there is daylight of five points after that.

Fumiyuki Beppu of Japan goes fastsest in the men’s cycling time trial but the real speed demons are still out on the road. Amazing support from the locals.

Just looking back at that Kiefer Sutherland/Jack Bauer posting. It looks massive. If it is offending more than five of you, let me know and I’ll reduce the size. He was great in The Lost Boys.

Mothers of Ireland and Planet Earth, beware of making your sons and daughters cycle professionally. Look at what it has done for Christopher froome – aged 27:

(London2012.com)

He’s no Jack Bauer, who is now third behind Lars Ytting Bak of Denmark and Janez Brajkovic of Slovenia.  Bradley Wiggins leads by 11 seconds at the split following Lap 2.

Eoin Rheinisch has been chatting to our man, Will Downing over at Lee Valley White Water Centre.

I got to that last move and when I went to turn to the right to cross the wave that you have to take to the second-last upstream, the back of the boat touched the bottom and I couldn’t finish the turn. It just sent me straight on and I just got washed away, didn’t catch the wave and before I knew it was through the next downstream which is an automatic 50-second penalty. It’s game over. Absolutely game over.

Djokovic has levelled up matters with Lleyton Hewitt and Greg Norman, the Shark Who Was Great, is looking perturbed by it. We’ve got a fight out in the third set. Fabian Cancellara is way off the pace in the road race. Could it be because of this:

YouTube credit:

Ana Ivanovic – eliminated by quarter-final bound Kim Clijsters. Nice one Ana, no more picture opportunities unless you are playing doubles. Unless … she is. Mixed doubles against the Indians today.

Roger Federer beatrs Denis Istomin, a tall man with a booming serve.

Kim Jangmi the Gold medal for the Women’s 25m Pistol. Another gold in the satchel for South Korea. She beats Ying Chen of China by a solitary point. Big hug for the coach there at the end.

Bradley Wiggins has opened up the gap to 22 seconds in the men’s cycling time trial.

Christopher Froome careens past the finish line in a time just over 51:47 and he is first but silver or bronze looks the more likely outcome for the Team GB man.

Win alert: Italy’s Daniele Molmenti gets the kayak gold medal. He put in a great run to capture the coveted prize – can’t wait to wriggle out of his boat and celebrate.

Tony Martin of Germany gets in 26 seconds ahead of Froome. Wiggins finishing up … gold coming.

Bradley Wiggins wins Gold! He pops the German balloon to beat Martin by 42 seconds. Hurculean effort from the man with the sideburns. Tour de France and time trial gold in the space of 10 days.

Silver for Tony Martin and bronze for Chris Froome.

We will get you the customary medal biting photo when Wiggins gets gold. No tears from Bradley. ‘Piece of piss’ he said beforehand. BBC have dropped their first knighthood request … “I think it should be ‘arise Sir Brad’.”

Gulp.

David McCann on Ireland finishes 27th overall, finishing 6:36 behind Wiggins. He was just four places back from road race gold medallist Alexandre Vinokourov.

Also, Novak Djokovic rallied to beat Lleyton Hewitt. Juan Martin del Potro is another third round winner.

In the Men’s K1 Slalom, the event Eoin Rheinisch exited, silver goes to Vavrinec Hradilek and Hannes Aigner of Germany gets bronze.

The ball is back in your court Sir Chris Hoy. Trump that!

Nine of the 16 tennis quarter-finalist, men’s and women’s, have been decided. Andy Murray is tackling March Baghdatis of Cyprus on Wimbledon’s Centre Court and the Scot, or Great Brit, leads 3-2.

Another Gold for you to nod approvingly about. Lucie Decosse has won the Women’s -70kg judo competition. She defeated Kerstin Thiele, while Yuri Alvear, the 2009 world champion, beat her Chinese opponent to pocket bronze.

In the men’s football Danilo, Leandro Damiao and Tottenham’s Sandro were all on the scoresheet in a 3-0 Brazilian win over New Zealand.

This picture sums up the mood felt by Ireland’s Eoin Rheinisch after his Olympic journey ended with a missed gate penalty midway through his semi-final run. Ciara O’Toole (Irish video analyst) looks crestfallen too.

(©INPHO/Morgan Treacy)

Sean Cronin and Kevin McLaughlin were at a Leinster summer training camp today. Here is what they thought question of the day, from one of the children taking part, was:

Rugby was in Olympics until 1949, why is it not any more?

Answers on a comment please.  My flash research tells me that rugby was in four Olympic games, the last time was 1924 and the United States are the reigning champions.

Rugby is included in the Rio 2016 programme. Looking forward to another false Irish dawn there.

Bradley Wiggins, confident chap, was speaking to the BBC about his latest piece of jewellery collection:

It was phenomenal, the noise was amazing. I don’t think my sporting career will ever top this now. That’s it. It will never, never get better than that. Incredible.

It had to be gold today or nothing. What’s the point of seven medals if they’re not the right colour? Mainly it’s about the four golds. Now I have to go to Rio and go for five.

Two more medals for the Chinese kitty – Li Xiaoxia wins table tennis gold as she edges out compatriot Ding Ning.

Emotional Scot Watch: Andy Murray loses the first set 6-4 to Marco Baghdatis.

North Korea rattle in another gold thanks to weightlifter Rim Jong Sim. Gold number four and medal number five for them so far.

CP3 hanging with Her Majesty:

Kohei Uchimura is in sinewy muscled form over at the North Greenwich Arena. He absolutely nailed the landing off  a triple twist from the vault. The Japanese gymnast is well on course for the gold medal but there are a couple of events to go.

I’ve been reliably informed that Ciara O’Toole (from the Rheinisch picture below) is the girlfriend of the valiant Olympian. I hope the two of them take time out to enjoy the sights and sounds of the Olympic Village – but for that elusive gate, he would have been in with a good shout in the slalom final.

Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern are ninth overall in the 49er sailing class. James O’Callaghan from the Irish Sailing Association commented:

The boys aren’t even half way through the fleet races and are still within the top 10. Everything is still up for grabs.

“I gotta fever, and the only thing that can cure it is more Gold.” Taking liberties with Christopher Walken there but only to announce that Song Dae-Nam from South Korea has won gold in the men’s -90kgs Judo competition.

I don’t know if Judy Murray, mother to Andy, is a judokan but she loves clenching her fist. She does show again as her son goes 5-1 up against Baghdatis in the second set. Victoria Azarenka of Bekarus has progressed to the women’s quarters.

Remember that (and I’m paraphrasing here) ‘We are all the same in Great Britain. Look, we all play rugby’ moment from the games’ opening ceremony? Well Gavan Reilly has tracked down a video of the try that stirred Irish and Northern Irish souls.

YouTube credit:

Any Murray has evened the contest against his Cypriot foe. One set apiece.

Great Britain’s male hockey players have been underwhelming against the team ranked bottom of their pool, South Africa. The side who were thumped 6-0 by Australia earlier in the tournament have secured a 2-2 draw against the home side.

Great Britain have been beaten in the men’s volleyball by Italy and their women’s basketball team have fallen behind Russia after holding an early lead.

Nonetheless, it has been a good day for British fans:

Tony Martin, Bradley Wiggins and Christopher Froome. (Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

Qin Kai and Luo Yutong of China has captured the men’s 3m synchronised springboard gold medal, beating out stiff, diving competition from Russia and the USA. Usual suspects those guys.

Well, well, well. I thought I was going to leave you all with a damp squib (or a ‘July 2012′ as it forever shall be known) before I signed off but Wimbledon has saved the day. Angelique Kerber has just knocked Venus Williams out of the Olympics, surely her final time as a singles competitor, with a 7-6, 7-6 win.

Paul here, taking the liveblog reigns from Patrick for the duration of the evening.

In case you were wondering, here’s what the current medal table looks like:

BREAKING: Andy Murray is through to the quarter-finals after beating Marcos Baghdatis 4-6 6-1 6-4 *starts weeping tears of joy*

As you may have heard already, London Mayor Boris Johnson had a bit of an embarrassing moment earlier when he got stuck on a zipline. Here’s the video:

YouTube credit:

Maria Sharapova has lost her first set 10-8 in a tie-break against Sabine Lisicki.

Ryan Giggs has been left out of the starting line-up for Team GB’s group match against Uruguay. Early reports suggest he is suffering from a hamstring injury. Here is the team that starts in full:

Butland; Taylor, Richards, Caulker, Bertrand; Ramsey, Allen, Cleverley; Bellamy, Sturridge, Sinclair, Bellamy (captain).

Kohei Uchimura has just won gold in the men’s gymnastics final to increase Japan’s medal count.

Marcel Nguyen of Germany takes silver, while the US’s Danell Leyva has secured bronze.

Giggs apparently is just being rested, owing to the amount of games he’s played in quick succession.

By the way, in case you were wondering, Team GB only need a draw this evening to progress past the group stages.

Roger Federers’s hopes of winning a tennis doubles title for the second Olympics in succession have ended.

Along with his partner Stanislas Wawrinka, he has lost 1-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 against Israel’s Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram

Another disappointing display from Spain’s Olympics team, as they end their last match in the tournament without a bang – by drawing 0-0 with Morocco.

The result means Spain exit the Olympics without having scored a single goal.

Here’s our favourite tweet of the day so far:

We’re almost ready for the men’s 200m breastroke final…

Neymar has been hyped up considerably over the past year or so, but on this evidence, he’d struggle to make it as a pub footballer (h/t Balls.ie).

YouTube credit:

NEW WORLD RECORD ALERT! Daniel Gyurta of Hungary has broken it, winning the 200m breastroke in the process.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Michael Jameson takes silver, simultaneously smashing the British record.

And Ryo Tateishi wins a bronze medal for Japan.

Next thing you know he’ll be doing zany commentary over the action and shouting ‘GOAL!’ quite frequently.

Melanie Schlanger of Australia has won gold in the first 100m freestyle semi-final.

Ranomi Kromowidjojo of the Netherlands has won the second 100m freestyle semi-final with a time of 53.05. Missy Franklin of the US comes second and China’s Tang Yi is third.

Ryan Lochte is up next…

Ryan Lochte wins the 200m backstroke semi-final, but is well off his best time.

USA’s Tyler Clary wins the second semi-final of the Men’s 200m backstroke.

Zhang Fenglin of China is second, while Japan’s Kazuki Watanable is third.

Piers Morgan is being his usual controversial self on Twitter.

It’s 0-0 between Uruguay and Team GB at the Millennium Stadium with just over 27 minutes gone.

Ding Ning, a Chinese table tennis player, broke down after a controversial point was awarded against her earlier today in the gold medal match in women’s singles. She subsequently lost the match and had to settle for silver against fellow Chinese competitor Li Xiaoxia (h/t Business Insider).

Nathan Adrian of the USA has just won gold in the Men’s 100m freestyle by the narrowest of margins.

Australia’s James Magnussen finishes second, and Brent Hayden of Canada is third.

Rikke Pedersen of Denmark has won the first 200m breastroke semi-final.

Daniel Sturridge slides home after good work from Joe Allen. It’s 1-0 to Team GB against Uruguay at half-time.

Rebecca Soni breaks the world record in the 200m breastroke semi-final.

Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte are among the athletes swimming next in the Men’s 200m individual medley.

RYAN LOCHTE WINS!

Meanwhile, Phelps is second and Britain’s James Goddard is third, much to the home crowd’s delight.

Chad le Clos, who beat Michael Phelps in the butterfly last night, is up next.

Lazslo Cseh of Hungary wins the second 200m individual medley semi-final.

Chad Le Clos finishes third, and just about qualifies for the final.

With 10 minutes gone in the first half, Team GB still lead Uruguay 1-0 in the football, and if it stays that way, they’ll face South Korea in the next round.

More on the emotional Chinese table tennis player Ding Ning (see 20.25). After her loss today, she was highly critical of the officiating, saying:

“I didn’t do very well today. I had an obstacle and not only from the opponent but from the judge.”

USA have won the women’s 4x200m relay, with Schmitt catching up on Australia, who have to settle for silver after leading on the third leg.

France take bronze.

That’s USA’s eight gold medal in the pool by the way. They’re really dominant at the moment.

Okay, that’s it from me for this evening. Thanks for reading and commenting, and don’t forget to check out our Olympic wrap, which will be on the site shortly.

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