The United States was trailing August 1 in the medal count to China at the 30th Olympiad of the 2012 London games, with China having 27 medals overall, ahead of the USA team by a single medal; the largest gap being in gold medals with China having 15 and the USA trailing with 10.
Despite being behind early in the medal count, Team USA has had a successful start in this year’s games with swimmer Michael Phelps breaking the record for all-time medals in the Olympics. Phelps won his 19th Olympic career medal by anchoring the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay and winning his 15th gold medal Tuesday night.
Phelps struggled in his first event the 400-meter individual medley, taking 4th place behind gold medalist American Ryan Lochte, but won silver medals in the 200-meter butterfly and the 4×100-meter freestyle relay.
Phelps broke the previous Olympic medals received record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina of the former Soviet Union, to become the all-time record holder and the most successful Olympian in history.
Team USA won its first team gold medal in women’s gymnastics since the 1996 Atlanta Games on Tuesday. Michigan native 17-year-old Jordyn Wieber, who failed to qualify Sunday for the all-around competition, came through in the floor routine for the team competition helping add to their first place team score of 183.596 to beat the 2nd place Russian team by 5.065 points.
The USA women’s gymnastics team has since been nicknamed the “Fab Five.”
“It’s the best team of all time” U.S. gymnastics coach John Geddert said after the event.
The U.S men’s basketball team has dominated the competition in their first two games beating France by 27 and Tunisia by 47. Led by three time MVP Lebron James, fresh from his first NBA championship, the team has been drawing comparisons and sparking debate as to whether they are as good as the legendary U.S. 1992 Dream Team led by Michael Jordan.
Team USA will face Nigeria on the court Thursday and look to continue its run to the gold medal.
With tons of Olympic action still to come, Team USA looks to surpass China for overall medals by the end of the competition on August 12th.
