Louis Smith described it as "crazy" to consider Great Britain as the third best team in the world after their artistic gymnastics men’s team bronze medal last night.
The 23-year-old Huntingdon Gymnastics Club member got the team off to a flying start with his pommel horse routine, which hinted at more to come in the individual final on Sunday.
And then he provided the guiding hand as his team-mates contested the remaining apparatus.
"Everything we have done in the last four years – all the positives and all the negatives – has been towards this," said team captain Smith.
"We had to pick ourselves up after Japan and not qualifying (for the Olympic Games). We had to keep pushing through Christmas, which isn’t easy – I defin
A victory in the event he has owned for 11 years would have made him the first man in history to win three consecutive 200m butterfly titles.
Michael Phelps wins record 19th Olympic medal with gold in 4x200 relay.
It was a coronation, but also a dethroning. Michael Phelps secured the two medals he needed to become the most decorated Olympian of all time as he took his career tally to 19 Games medals, beating the 48-year-old record of 18 held by former Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina. But the colour of one of those medals on Tuesday night — silver in Phelps’s signature 200 metres butterfly event — was also proof that his pre-eminence in the pool is now well and truly over as he gets ready for retirement immediately after events in London.
Phelps did not do silver in Beijing four years ago. Gold was the only metal he was interested in and it was hung around his neck a record eight times, adding to the six golds he won in Athens in 2004.
He added another on Tuesday when he anchored his United States team-mates to victory in the 4x200m freestyle relay in the final race of the evening programme, though his contribution was purely a lap of honour after his compatriots had already established an unassailable lead by the time he dived in.
The American victory brought the 17,000 crowd to its feet to salute Phelps’s moment of history, though the celebrations were tinged with slight disappointment that he was unable to make it a double triumph.
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