1/8

The grit and commitment of this athlete is astounding! Manteo Mitchell finished the 4x400 relay on a broken leg. He broke his leg half way round the track but still managed to finish. The 25-year-old 200 ran the first leg of America's heat. Mitchell's decision to go through the pain barrier allowed his U.S. team mates to sprint to a joint finish with the Bahamas in identical times of 2 minutes 58.87 seconds; the fastest ever run in the first round of the relay at the Olympic Games.

2/8

In gymnastics, America’s heavy favourite McKayla Maroney settled for silver in the women's vault. Her final jump was excellent and everyone thought she had the gold. Then on her second jump, she didn’t spin enough and fell scoring 15.083 for silver. Sandra Izbasa of Romania took home the gold medal.

3/8

Michael Phelps failed to win medal in his first final. He got his hand on the wall just in the nick of time to scrape into the final of the men's 400 metres individual medley. Yes, Phelps did recover and went to break the all-time medal record, but his first finals appearance of the Games did throw us a little out of gear.

4/8

Kazakhstan won six gold medals, four from weightlifting alone. They have been quietly, but steadily making a dent into the Olympics. Before London, their Olympic medal count has not been more than three in any winter or Summer Games. Kazakh athletes have been surprising us with their potential and they are sending us the message loud and clear, “They are here to win “

5/8

America's 15-year-old freestyle prodigy Katie Ledecky blew away the field for gold in the women's 800m freestyle swimming event at the Olympics. She finished just half a second shy of the world record. Britain's defending champion and world record holder Rebecca Adlington couldn't live with the pace, fading from silver position to settle for bronze in 8:20.32.

6/8

Semi final matches in tennis can be nerve-racking. Even for Federer. Federer, ranked No. 1 lost the first set to Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro. In the longest best-of-three-set set match ever played in men's professional tennis, Federer finally outlasted Potro winning 3-6 7-6 19-17 in four hours 26 minutes to reach his first Olympic singles final.

7/8

America’s 17-year old Claressa Shields outfoxed and outgunned 33-year old Russian Nadezda Torlopova to win the first women's Olympic boxing middleweight gold on Thursday. Shields took the bout 19-12 at the Excel Arena in east London to claim America's only gold medal in the ring at the Games after the nine men all exited before the semi-finals.

8/8

Great Britain's Keri-Anne Payne did not finish in the top three. The reigning world champion was a silver medalist in 2008 and a favorite to win the open-water event. She failed make it out on the podium by four-tenths of a second.