It was a mixed day for Britain in Beijing today as the heavens opened to soak the competitors. However it was in Qingdao where there was better news for team GB as they took another gold in the sailing. Britain’s 17th gold of the games came courtesy of Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson in the star class. It was a battle to the last but the British pair just managed to squeeze out the Swedish team.

David Davies had to be carried away after the end of his 10km swim. The Briton narrowly missed out on gold as he gave his all to take silver just behind Maarten Van Der Weijden. Davies earned much praise for how hard he worked for the medal and was unlucky not to get more.

In the Bird’s nest the triple jump medals were decided today as the contest finally came to a head. Britain’s Phillips Idowu was amongst the favourites but could only manage silver as Portuguese jumper Nelson Evora made 5cm more than the British world number 1. Idowu’s jump of 17.62 was only 6cm short of his personal best but Evora produced the goods at exactly the right time to give Portugal its first gold medal of the games.

It was disaster though for the British 4x 100m men’s relay team as Craig Pickering moved far too early and therefore the team were outside the legal handover area. It meant Britain were disqualified and now cannot defend their Olympic title, but they were not alone. Both the American men’s and women’s 4 x 100m teams were disqualified also with handover errors. In the same race the USA’s women were disqualified the British women’s team made it through in comfortable fashion.

In an event that is to be scrapped because of their dominance the US fell to a shock defeat in the softball today. The Japanese performed well to give the USA their first Olympic defeat in the sport for 8 years.

However the USA did retain their Olympic champions crown in the women’s volleyball as Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor beat China’s Tian Jia and Wang Jie. Nevertheless the bronze also found its way to the home nation as Xue Chen and Zhang Xi beat Brazil’s Renata Ribeiro and Talita Rocha.

It was a familiar sight in the diving today too as China picked up its 7th gold in 7 events. Chen Ruolin won the 10m women’s platform diving gold at the tender age of 15. Wang Xin also took bronze for China, following Canadian Emilie Heymans.

China maintain their position in the medal table, retaining top spot. However the USA have extended the gap of total medals to 10 so China will struggle to overhaul their total medals. Britain remain in third thanks to Andrew Simpson’s and Iain Percy’s gold because Russia are only one behind now with a higher total medals score.