The biggest news today at the games was Liu Xiang having to pull out of the 110m hurdles through injury. In arguably the most anticipated event for the Chinese of the whole games the packed bird's nest was shocked into silence.

The man with the whole country's expectations on his shoulders was clearly in huge discomfort during his warm up, pulling up after a practice start. However it appeared that he was willing to continue and try to get through the heat, but a false start was the last thing the Olympic champion needed.

You could see the hope was gone as he stunned the crowd by walking back down the tunnel. Apparently the injury had been there for weeks but got worse a few days ago and Liu was obviously devastated not to be able to compete. Also disappointingly it led to a mass exodus from the stadium with plenty of athletic still to come. This has sparked fears that the stadium may be half empty on Thursday when the 110m hurdles final is due.

In better news for Britain, the men's cycling pursuit team took gold in the cycling. It means that Britain has their biggest gold medal haul since Antwerp 1920. The team smashed their own world record in the process of winning that gold.

The men's 470 sailing race also provided a medal for team GB. Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield completed a marvellous comeback to get silver.

There was also good news in the boxing for Britain as more medals are guaranteed to be coming home. Super-heavyweight David Price progressed through his quarter final after his opponent Jaroslav Jaksto was forced to retire through injury.

In the uneven bars in the gymnastics China's He Kexin won on her execution score over American Nastia Liukin. Briton Beth Tweddle narrowly lost out on bronze to Yang Yilin. In the men's rings final China had a 1-2 as Chen Yibing took gold and Yang Wei took silver.

He Wenna was in impressive form as she got another gymnastics gold for China. Her score of 37.80 was enough to win the trampoline event.

Britain's womens hockey team went out today as they could only manage a draw against the team from the USA.

China flexed their muscles in the table tennis as the men's team beat the German pair in front of a partisan crowd at the Peking university gymnasium. The men's team won 3-0 to set China up for a whitewash tomorrow if they win the singles final.

Britain maintained their position in third place in the medals table thanks to another good show by team GB. China's position at the top of the table seems insurmountable now as they have 37 golds.