Three swimming World Records broken in just one day at the Olympics

Watching the Olympics is actually a surprisingly exhausting process, and no doubt everyone has their favourite events. I’ll definitely be elaborating on mine over the next few days as the rest of the events get under way, but really, who would have thought swimming would be *that* nail bitingly exciting?

America’s B-team (and the Aussies) broke the world record (during the heats no less) during the 4x100m freestyle relay, as did fellow American Michael Phelps in the men’s 400m individual medley. He had clearly taken a leaf out of Aussie Stephanie Rice‘s book; she had done exactly that in the women’s 400m individual medley much earlier in the day.

Michael Phelps (Credit: Adam Pretty/Getty Images)

The Dutch also took a surprise gold in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay, breaking the Olympic record at the same time, although the biggest shock of the day for me had to be Korea’s Park Tae-Hwan winning the men’s 400m free style gold. However, it turned out that he had won the World Championships just last year in Sydney, but it’s good to know that some people do perform well even in their first Olympics!

Park Tae-hwan (Credit: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

And in other events… Nicole Cooke won the first gold medal for Britain in this Olympic campaign, which incidentally turned out to be the first ever medal won by Britain in the Olympics women’s road cycling event!