Two days have gone past since the opening ceremony and the battle for gold medals has just intensified. China seized the early momentum winning gold medals from shooting, weightlifting and swimming while Italy, Kazakhstan and United States are also among the gold winners.
The biggest star
The biggest impact so far was made by Ye Shiwen, the 16-year old Chinese swimmer, who claimed a gold medal in 400m individual medley and that also with a timing which will make Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte proud. Shiwen covered the third leg in 29.75 seconds, faster than Phelps did in the men’s final, and the last leg in 28.93 second, which was quicker than Lochte did when he claimed gold in the men’s race. First time Olympian Shiwen, who won the 200m and 400m individual medley at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, is now the most talked about athlete in London. She could have hit the headlines at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai if she had not suffered from a cyst that caused her to have a fever.
But she grabbed her next big opportunity, the Olympics, to announce her arrival in world stage.
Emotional Louis loses his cool
The first day of men’s artistic gymnastics was an emotional one for Louis Smith. After his last apparatus in the men’s artistic gymnastics qualifications subdivision-1 he burst into tears. The routine just happened to be the pommel horse, his specialty, and he explained: ‘It’s been an emotional four years. There’s been a lot of pressure on my shoulders; a lot of people have put in a lot of hours supporting me.’ Team-mate Daniel Purvis said: ‘You don’t really expect that from Louis, he’s a cool guy. I was just hoping it was the tears of joy on his great score.’
-With New Age input
