Usain Bolt will once again dominate the headlines in the papers tomorrow after another scintillating display inside the Bird’s nest today. The eccentric Jamaican breezed through his 200m final to leave the rest of the field for dead. He also beat Michael Johnson’s long standing record as he clocked a time of 19.30 seconds. The 21 year old had been in a league of his own at this Olympics as sprinting has now entered a new age. Briton Christian Malcolm made it to the 200m Olympic final again, 8 years after his first. He finished in 6th and in truth had done well just to get to the final.

Britain had better success in the women’s 400m hurdles behind another Jamaican. Melanie Walker broke the Olympic record to take gold in the race and Briton Tasha Danvers followed her in third to get bronze.

Kerri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten forced the current world champion Larisa Ilchenko to the wire in the 10km swim. It was only in the last 100m that the Russian was able to regain first pushing the two Britons down into silver and bronze positions.

Another British medal was assured as James DeGale is now assured of at least a bronze medal in the boxing. The middleweight confidently beat Kazakhstan’s Bakhtiyar Artayev.

An emotional Bryony Shaw was delighted to take a bronze in the windsurfing RS: X. It was Yin Jian who took the gold in this race and Italian Alessandra Sensini who finished with silver.

BMX made its Olympic debut today in exciting fashion as there were crashes and drama. This included Britain’s Shanaze Reade who took a tumble, but she recovered well to reach the semi-final.

It was a relatively quiet day for China today at the games. In the Bird’s nest Zhang Wenxiu did well to get a bronze in the women’s hammer. Her throw of 74.32 was over 2 metres short of winner Aksana Miankova from Belarus.

Even Yao Ming couldn’t prevent the Chinese basketball team’s exit from the Olympics today as they went down 68-94 to Lithuania in their quarter final match.

There was better news for the Chinese women’s hockey team as they edged out Germany 3-2 in their semi-final match, they now go on to meet the Netherlands in the final.

Wu Jingyu collected another gold for China in the 49kg Taekwondo after he beat Thailand’s Buttree Puedpong.

In other news this games is set to be the most watched in history, 842 million of China’s population were believed to have watched at least some part of the opening ceremony. 40 million Americans watched Phelps get his 8th gold medal. By the end of the games estimates for the total viewing figures are around 1.2 billion people, a fifth of the planet.

Both China and Britain maintained their respective positions in the medals table at the end of day twelve. The next target for China will be to overhaul the USA’s total medal total of 82 so they can be the undisputed top Olympic nation.