29 Jul 2012

Rain follows sun to hit conditions at London 2012

After a week of sunny weather, rain and the forecast of hail on the second day of competition affected tennis at Wimbledon and made for slippery conditions in the women’s cycling road race.

After a week of sunshine, rain and the forecast of hail on the second day of competition affected the tennis at Wimbledon and made for slippery conditions in the women's cycling road race.

Ryan Lochte and Sun Yang were among the few who were not concerned about getting wet when heavy rain saturated London’s Olympic Park on Sunday.

Lochte had the second-fastest time in qualifying for the 200-meter freestyle, the morning after his stunning win in a 400-meter individual medley final that will be famous for the fact Michael Phelps missed a medal.

“I didn’t get to bed until like 2am. so I’m a little tired, but it was a prelims swim, so I’m not too worried about it,” said Lochte, who went out with family and friends to celebrate his victory. Phelps won an unprecedented eight golds at the Beijing Olympics, but now cannot win more than six in London.

China’s Sun is on track for a second gold medal after leading qualifiers in the 200m freestyle in 1 minute, 46.24 seconds the morning after his victory in the 400m freestyle.

Doping blight

While the weather was bad, there were other blights: a female gymnast from Uzbekistan was provisionally suspended after failing a doping test, the second case of the games. The IOC says Luiza Galiulina tested positive for the diuretic furosemide on Wednesday.

It came a day after the IOC expelled Albanian weightlifter Hysen Pulaku from the games after he tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol on 23 July.

And hundreds of fans wanting to see New Zealand, Brazil, Belarus and Egypt were stranded in London or forced to sit on the train floor Sunday as service operators supplied only two morning London-to-Manchester services in time for the noon kick-off of the New Zealand-Egypt match in Manchester, 200 miles (320 kilometers) northwest of London.

Many fans said they were refused entry to the trains at stops north of London, while others successfully begged their way aboard and sat on the floor.