Britain's first gold medal arrived today in inspiring fashion as Nicole Cooke took a sprint finish at the end of the women's road race. She dug deep to finish the gruelling course in dismal weather in a time of 3 hours, 32 minutes and 24 seconds.  It meant that the British Olympic team attained their first medal at these games and she has fulfilled her undoubted potential.

Elsewhere the British women's archery team narrowly missed out on bronze by one point to the French. In the same event the Chinese team took silver as they were beaten by South Korea.  It was better news for the men's 4 x 100m relay team in the pool as they defied the odds and took 5 seconds of the British record time to qualify for the final. However the imperious United States team broke the world record in their heat to qualify, even without Michael Phelps. The giant Phelps achieved his first gold medal today in front of US president George Bush, breaking the world record in the process.

The rowing is still proving to be a strong event for the Britons as the women's quads qualified for their final. The men's double sculls also made it to their respective semi-final. Boxing is another event Britain features strongly in as Billy Joe Saunders and Bradley Saunders breezed through their fights.

Britain continued to impress in the sailing as Ben Rhodes and Stevie Morrison took the lead in the 49er class. Unfortunately in women's hockey the GB team was overpowered by Olympic champions Germany in a convincing 5-1 defeat.

It was an even better day for the hosts as they picked up four more gold medals today alongside two silvers. Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia completed what seemed like a formality as they took the 3m synchronised diving gold. Xian Dongmei added to the gold medal tally in the women's Judo final by beating Paderina of Russia. Once again the athletes were back at the shooting range where Wenjun Guo did what Du Li couldn't and took gold in the women's 10m air pistol final. Finally Qingquan Long won the 56kg weightlifting class, the 17 year old lifting a combined total of 292kg.

In the blue ribbon event of the day the Chinese basketball team lost out to the USA's star studded team running out winners by a score of 101-70. Yao Ming was outshone by Lebron James in the most anticipated event of the games so far.

China once again tops the medal table at the end of day two with 6 golds now and Britain enter the top 10 after Nicole Cooke's heroics.