Just to qualify onto the team you had to be ranked at least sixth in the world and it is a team that topped the medal table at the 2006 IPC World Championships.

There will be some familiar faces in Beijing who seem sure to medal - swimmers such as Sascha Kindred, Nyree Lewis, David Roberts, Jim Anderson and Natalie Jones.

However 45% of the team are first time Paralympians and they are likely to be in the mix too.

The GB swimming team have maintained their success for the same reasons cycling and sailing were so successful at the Olympics - funding, planning, attention to detail and focused athletes and staff.

Since the release of National Lottery funding to cover more than just capital projects, British Swimming has been able to invest in the development of talented athletes.

Simply throwing money at something will only get you so far. Team members like current head coach Lars Humer focus on getting all of the detail right all of the time and this doesn't happen by chance.

There will already be a four-year plan in place to move the team on far beyond Beijing.

As with most sports, the athletes put in all the hard work required to get into physical shape but here there is a real sense of team in the broader sense.

Each component of the support team from strength and conditioning to sports psychology, from sports science to the office admin support, everyone is focused and passionate about helping the swimmers be the best they can be.

However, the British team will not have it all their own way. Ukraine has a very strong team of predominantly visually-impaired swimmers and, with stars like Erin Popovich and Jessica Long, the USA will accumulate a substantial medal haul.

Few swimmers will be as dominant as South Africa's Natalie Du Toit in the women's S9 events and of course there will be a very strong team representing the host nation China.

There are a couple of races that I am particularly looking forward to.

The Men's 34-point freestyle relay is always very exciting and although GB won gold in both Sydney and Athens they are likely to be pushed very hard by Australia, with Matt Cowdrey leading the charge.

However, my pick for the entire competition would be the Men's S8 400m freestyle which will be on 12 September.

It will feature Britain's Sam Hynd, who is the world record holder for the event and, despite it being his first Games, he will be favourite.

He will face one of the most talented swimmers in the world Xiaofu Wang who will have the home crowd behind him. It is sure to be an exciting contest.

Just a small part of me is envious of this year's Paralympic swimmers. To race in such a beautiful pool like the Water Cube will be an incredible experience for them.

Thankfully, the larger part of me has come to terms with the fact that my time as an athlete has been and gone and now I can just enjoy commentating on their endeavours.

Hodge isn't just talking about a plan to aim to repeat the feats of the Great Britain coxless four in London in four years' time. He's also alluding to the plans the wider rowing world has in place to build on the success of Beijing. But more of that later.

Many of the rest of the 23 British rowers who came back from Beijing with medals have got some thinking to do over the next few months. Do they want to go through another punishing four years to compete in front of a home crowd in 2012?

Hodge's crew-mate Steve Williams is clearly already sick of answering the question, saying: "For me now is the time to put the feet up, recharge the batteries and enjoy the moment. The answer will come to me."

Williams was the only rower to fly home from Beijing business class as a double Olympic gold-medallist, he is 32 and admits he considered retiring four years ago so the fact his decision is still up in the air is a bit of a shock.

Asked if he has achieved everything he wants to, he replies: "That will be the question that makes up my mind and I'm not really thinking about it at the moment."

Katherine Grainger clearly hasn't achieved what she wanted to. When the request comes for photographs of the GB medallists at their post-Games media day, she smiles ruefully at a crew-mate.

The mission of the women's quadruple scull was to win Great Britain's first women's rowing gold. Their tears and exhaustion on the podium as they accepted silver told the whole story.

"There's still disappointment and that won't go away. There's always a bit of a what-if about it," she tells me.

With two silvers already to her name, there was an assumption that Grainger's third Olympics would be her last but she explains: "You need perspective and distance. Everyone wants to go to the Olympics and if you could do 10 more you would because it's so special just to be there.

"But for what it would take for 2012, it's about what I would feel like on a wet, wintry morning in December.

"If the passion and desire is still there then of course it's possible but a rather large and enjoyable holiday must come first.

"You need the physical break but you need the mental and emotional break more than anything else and then you can see more clearly which way to go."

My barely-informed hunch - after a three-minute chat with Kath - is that she will be back for more (although she is clearly a good way from making her mind up) while Williams will decide to spend more time building a career as a motivational speaker.

Also from the quad, Debbie Flood will become a fully qualified prison officerr in the next few months while Frances Houghton - a former crew-mate of Rebecca Romero - plans to do some cycling, "but only between vineyards".

Matt Langridge, silver medallist in the men's eight, is still suffering shell-shock after the Games (and the week of partying in the Olympic Village that followed).

"We've had weeks of being told what to do, when to eat, when to go to bed. Now we can do what we want," he says.

Men's head coach Jurgen Grobler expects the squad to give him some sort of idea about what they want to do by mid-October, still more than six months before the first international event of the 2009 season.

Meanwhile, GB Rowing performance director David Tanner - a man so meticulous he visited Shunyi six times before the Games to make sure everything was in place - is already thinking about the new faces the squad will need for 2012.

"We need to accept some retirements. I think the biggest challenge is to blood some new rowers," he tells me.

"By 2010 we need to have the 2012 team. There will be some new faces and that's the biggest challenge.

"There will be some changes - I hope there will be changes. Nobody had heard of Tom Lucy in the men's eight until a year ago. Zac Purchase was a junior in 2004."

Purchase - gold medallist in the lightweight double scull in Beijing - is likely to be one of the faces of 2012 and he has high hopes of British success in the rowing regatta.

But the effects of his success are already being felt at grass-roots level. The club where he learned to row, in Upton-on-Severn, Worcestershire, is reporting that all of their summer sculling courses are full.

Hodge, meanwhile, will spend next season as captain of Molesey Boat Club in Surrey, a club that also provided his crew-mate Tom James and Acer Nethercott, cox of the eight, to the GB squad.

Two of the programmes he is particularly keen on getting more involved in are the Sporting Giants initiative and World Class Start - both designed to identify potential Olympians based on their size and to fast-track them into the national squad.

Rowing clubs around the country will be braced for an influx of wannabe Hodges and potential Purchases but while those novices take to the water for the first time, the current crop of stars will be taking a well-earned break.

What has pleased me most is that people who wouldn't normally cross the road to watch a swimming event have become enthralled by something that captured my attention 15 years ago at the European Championships in Sheffield.

The talk in the BBC office was all about Phelps and Adlington, how to pronounce Cavic and how do they swim that fast over 10 kilometres?

The international highlight, by some distance, was Michael Phelps.

Eight golds, seven world records, but people will be talking about that finish to the 100 metres butterfly for many years to come. Did he really overtake the Serbian on the last stroke, and why has the underwater shot of the finish mysteriously 'disappeared'?

Well it's not available to the BBC anyway. It doesn't quite rival the JFK conspiracies, but it will be a topic of conversation in Belgrade and Baltimore on many cold winter nights over the next few years.

It shouldn't however mask the amazing achievement by the 23-year-old and there are more record-breaking feats in store for us to watch, and him to do, in London four years from now.

Sorry Michael, but you don't get the accolade for the best individual performance in a race. Call me jingoistic if you like, but Rebecca Adlington's domination of the field in the 800 metres freestyle final will live long in my memory and those of everyone who witnessed it.

To beat the field by more than six seconds, and to break Janet Evans' stubborn 19-year-old record by more than two, was a staggering achievement.

Britain has, at long last, unearthed a genuine swimming superstar, the like of whom we have not seen since David Wilkie in the 1970's. Her finish in the 400 freestyle was breathtaking enough, but five days later she eclipsed that many times over.

It's a shame that the 1500 is not in the Olympic programme for women. I believe the 19-year-old from Mansfield would be capable of winning that along with her other golden events.

And, for good measure, she could anchor the 4x200 metres freestyle relay team to victory in 2012 as well.

The title of Dame Rebecca might be a bit premature, (does it really sit properly with a young woman not yet into her 20's?), but her achievements should be recognised properly and not just with the renaming of the local baths.

Jo Jackson has been rather overlooked because of Adlington's greatness, but her bronze medal in the 400 metres freestyle was just reward for one of the most hard-working of swimmers in the British team.

Unlike Becky she was not blessed with a graceful stroke, but brute force and determination has taken her a long way and will give her the confidence to go a step or two further

The men's team, on the whole, relays excepted, was disappointing. There were a few bonuses - Michael Rock making the final of the 200 metres butterfly and Robbie Renwick taking his chance as a first reserve for the semi-finals to make the last eight in the 200 freestyle.

Gregor Tait's Olympic swansong saw him make a final in the 200 backstroke, for the second time, but despite a British record, Liam Tancock was unable to underline his genuine world class in the 100 back.

The Open Water was a fantastic addition to the Olympic programme, and not because Britain picked up half of the medals.

Keri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten were just reeled in by Larissa Lichen to deny a British one-two in the women's 10km, and David Davies had nothing left to give, in being overhauled by Marten van deer Widen in the last 100 metres of the men's race.

They were both absolutely stunning finishes.

Six medals, 21 finalists in the pool, British records galore, a few European and Commonwealth ones thrown in for good measure, don't call British swimmers under-achievers any more.

That coat simply doesn't fit now.

This could be the first thing Chris Hoy has got wrong in months.

Before coming to Beijing, he said that if he had to put his mortgage on anyone winning gold out here, he'd go for Shanaze Reade.

The track legend doesn't have to worry about losing his home - His Royal Hoyness can probably take his pick of Scotland's castles and palaces right now - but he might have a job to do with Shanaze later on.

The 19-year-old from Crewe, who hadn't lost a BMX final for three years before this morning, was distraught after wiping out on the last corner and seeing her medal chances disappear in a faceful of yellow dirt.

"I'm so cut up and hurt," she said afterwards, a blank look of shock on her face and a dark bloodstain spreading through the white fabric of her GB jersey around her elbow.

"I've hurt my back, I'm all cut up on my arm, I think I've done something to my hand, I've hurt my sciatic nerve and I've cut my shoulder up."

After a monstrous crash in the first leg of her semi-final, Reade had fought back brilliantly in the next two races to take her place on the start-line for the medal race.

When the gate dropped in the final, she thrashed down the ramp and away, holding a lead of a bike-length going into the first berm.

It was here that she made the key mistake, riding too high around the banked curve and allowing France's Anna-Caroline Chausson to steal up her inside and into the lead.

For three straights Chausson held a slight advantage, with Reade closing all the time - until the very last turn, when the Briton went for a desperate lunge up the inside, clipped Chausson's rear wheel and slammed into the baked earth. In that moment, her Olympic dream was over.

Afterwards the adrenaline keeping the pain at bay, she was unrepentant about her last-gasp gamble.

"Why settle for silver?" she said. "I put absolutely everything into this, my heart and my soul, everything since the age of 10.

"You don't train as hard as I do for silver. It's about the gold or nothing."

In truth, Reade's problems had their roots in an earlier gamble, right at the start of the morning's action.

Despite warnings from her coaches, she had decided that she would try to clear the third set of jumps on the course in one flying leap. If it came off, it would give her a huge advantage that would almost certainly be enough to win her the race.

Chris Boardman's view was simple - it wasn't something Shanaze needed to do. With her catapult start, massive strength and whirlwind cadence, she was already the clear favourite.

While she was the only rider in the field who would even consider the jump, it carried huge risks. If she misjudged the landing, she would almost certainly end up face down in the mud.

Reade decided to back herself, with disastrous results. Leading by a big chunk in that first heat, she cleared the jumps at too great a pace, flipped off the bike and landed heavily on her hip and shoulder.

She staggered to her feet, remounted and rode to the line, but the damage had been done, both to her body and confidence.

"They say you learn the hard way, and I guess I have," she said later, on her way to hospital for X-rays.

"But a true athlete and a true winner always comes back stronger, and I'm going to turn it round and show everyone what I'm made of."

Reade's distress apart, BMX's Olympic bow was a spectacular success.

Track fans and Hoy might still mourn the loss of the kilo, but its replacement offered an atmosphere unique to these Games.

At no other venue has the PA blasted out the unmistakable sound of Brian Johnson screeching "For Those About To Rock" moments before an Olympic final, nor seen pompom-waving cheerleaders invade the track for some high-kicking high-jinks within seconds of the competitors zooming past.

"BAAYYY-JEEENGG!" the stadium announcer kept roaring. "BAAYYY-JEEENGG CHINA! MAKE SOME NOISE! I CAN'T HEAR YOU, BAAY-JEENG!"

From the track's lumps, bumps and jumps came crash after breathtaking crash. If a race went by without a monstrous stack, I must have still had my hands over my eyes from the previous wipeout and missed it.

Dressage it wasn't. But are you telling me that's a bad thing?

Great Britain's medal target in sailing was four - to achieve that in golds with an additional silver and bronze was beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

Percy and Simpson's victory in the Star class was pure gold in every sense of the word. The lifelong friends showed great resilience to squeeze through an extremely testing medal race to secure first place.

"We had to fight every inch of the way" said Percy, who's now a double Olympic gold medallist.

For Andrew "Bart" Simpson this was also the culmination of a long and winding Olympic campaign. He was Percy's training partner in Sydney, and again for Ben Ainslie in Athens. Bart is now an Olympic champion in his own right.

Paul Goodison's gold medal drew to a close a stunning campaign - unbeaten over three years at the Olympic venue, and in his mind there was only going to be one winner.

The Sheffield United fan had focused his training towards winning this event, after missing out on a medal four years ago in Athens by a solitary point.

The Laser class has a history of mishap and upset - you can be the best in the world ahead of the regatta, but still go home empty handed. That was never an option for Goody.

Great Britain's Yngling gold medal was the result of a perfectly executed four-year plan by three girls and their coach. Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson developed themselves into an invincible unit and their victory came as a surprise to no-one, least of all themselves.

There's little more than can be said about Ben Ainslie. At 31, he's already a sailing great who can go on to achieve immortal status.

Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield's silver medal was won from almost nowhere. In reality it was their gold.

The pair started their series slowly and a medal of any colour looked out of reach, but these two are seasoned campaigners and best of friends. They know how to dig themselves out a hole.

Rogers and Glanfield are disparate characters who spark off one another to produce a superbly strong team, one of the strongest in the sport.

Bryony Shaw's bronze medal was a superb effort in the ultimately physical class. She was one girl who wanted her medal more than anything - her post race reaction said it all.

Her diminutive frame was required to perform the equivalent of two 10,000m races each day. Physical preparation and psychological strength allowed her compete to the very end of the regatta ensuring a valuable medal for the team.

Tom Daley will be in action again for Great Britain and I can tell you he's in good shape and diving well in training.

We didn't plan it, but I've actually seen him every day, either at the Water Cube - where he's been taking in the swimming competition - at the Village or at the team lodge, which is where athletes can meet up with friends and family.

Obviously, there was a bit of a furore about Blake Aldridge's comments about Tom after their disappointing performance in the synchro final last week. I know, because my phone was ringing off the hook!

But I saw them both on the evening after the final and Tom was absolutely fine about it. It just seemed to bounce off him.

Tom and Blake aren't sharing rooms anymore - but not because they've fallen out or anything. The people who are still competing are now sharing rooms and the rest, like Blake, well, they're just out here enjoying themselves.

Their partnership will be assessed - just like all of them - when they come back from Beijing, but I would imagine they'll continue and see how it goes. You always have constant reviews: you've got to be on top of your game and injury-free so you can't look too far into the future.

But the synchro has been 'parked' for the time being and it's all about looking ahead to the individual.

Tom's had some time to relax since last week. He's had his family around, which as you can imagine is important for a 14-year-old.

And on Thursday, a group of us went up to the Great Wall. We took a cable car up, walked a long for a mile or so and then we got a toboggan down. Brilliant.

But now it's down to business for Tom. As he was before his first event, he's very excited. But on the day of the synchro, he was also very nervous.

But now that he's got his Olympic experience, it's all about enjoying his diving and expressing himself. That's what I've been talking to him about.

The final is what he's aiming for and if he does that, it would be a phenomenal achievement. It took me three Olympic Games just to make a final so for him to do it in his first, it would be just astonishing.

It's going to be tough. You've got the prelims on Friday, then you come back and do the same dives in the semis on Saturday morning and if you make the top 12, you've got about eight hours until the final. To perform at the highest level all the time, it's a killer.

I'm looking forward to watching it unfold and I'll be nervous watching the Brits. If you want a tip, I'd say: Watch Waterfield! My old synchro partner Pete was fifth in Athens and he's hopeful of getting among the medals this time. It would be just amazing to see one of my best friends up there on the podium.

He's got competition though. China have dominated the diving, but this is probably their weakest event. It's all relative though and both their divers will be in contention.

Then you've got Sascha Klein from Germany, who won the World Cup this year, the American David Boudia and Jose Antonio Guerra Oliva from Cuba.

It's a tough one to call, but if it's anything like the standard we've seen so far, it should be a thriller.

PS - I managed to get to the Bird's Nest on Tuesday to see Christine Ohuruogu win gold in the 400m. I was invited to watch it in one of the VIP suites so I did my commentary on the men's 3m springboard final - which was one of the best I have ever seen by the way - then literally ran over to the stadium, bumped into Tony Blair on the way, and just managed to make it in time to see Christine.

The atmosphere was incredible. What a day!

Last night I indulged an Olympic guilty pleasure. It was hot and sweaty, kept me up very late and involved lots of Brazilians. I knew it was wrong but I couldn't help it.

The men's football semi-final between defending champions Argentina and their arch-rivals Brazil was like nothing else I've witnessed at these Olympics. In fact, it was like nothing else I've witnessed full stop.

Before I continue I should state I'm not sure football - or certainly some of the players involved - should really be here. Having earlier questioned tennis's place in the Olympics, any other position would smack of bias.

The match was a cracker. Tense and tight in the first half, Argentina poached two quick goals at the start of the second. They then survived a Brazilian rally, before killing the game off with a third from the penalty spot. The team in gold ended the game in disarray, while the team in blue and white left dreaming of gold.

First, though, some background. The Olympic football tournament is a "super clasico" example of administrative fudge.

Part of the schedule since 1900, the early tournaments made sense in that amateurs contested them. The standard wasn't very high and the margins of victory could be ludicrously wide. This seemed to suit Great Britain as we won three of the first four golds.

But as the sport grew, the competition got better, largely thanks to South America. Fifa noticed this and thought it was about time it justified its status as football's governing body, the first World Cup in 1930 being the result. This also meant kicking the Olympic tournament into the long grass.

A status quo developed over the next half century. Fifa's World Cup grew in size and significance, while the Olympic tournament pootered along as an event only taken seriously by the state-sponsored "amateurs" of the Eastern Bloc.

This, inevitably, drew envious glances from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The Montreal Games in 1976 were a financial catastrophe, as were the Moscow Games of 1980 if anybody was really keeping count. The Olympics could not afford another loss-maker. Decent football had to return, even in a compromised state.

Fifa, reluctant to allow any challenge to its showpiece's primacy, gave the green light for countries from weaker regions to field their strongest sides and Europe and South America to use players who had not appeared in a World Cup. The traditional powers responded by fielding youth teams and, hey presto, a tournament, which pleased the IOC and didn't upset Fifa, was reborn.

The situation was clarified in 1992, when the Olympic competition was limited to players under 23 but with the proviso that three players older than 23 could be used too. This gave the Olympics a few more marketable sportsmen (the women would have to wait until 1996) and Fifa's under-17, under-20 and senior tournaments were left unchallenged.

It was, however, a complete carve-up. The clubs, who employ the players, were never consulted and the hosts now had to find half a dozen grounds big enough to hold these matches and squeeze them into the schedule.

Which brings me to Tuesday night.

Over these last two weeks I have seen China play the US in the most watched basketball match of all time, Usain Bolt demolish his 100m world record, Michael Phelps set a new best of eight golds in a Games and Norway thrash Kazakhstan at handball. OK, forget that last one, but the others were all massive occasions and I'm blessed to have seen them.

None, however, matched the atmosphere in the Workers' Stadium. First, the place was stuffed to the gills. Second, it was noisy, which only happens anywhere else when a Chinese athlete is winning. And third, there were global superstars out there who everybody, not just the devoted, recognised: Argentina's mini maestro Lionel Messi and Brazilian hero Ronaldinho.

It was also immediately evident this was part of the Olympics but somehow bigger than it too. No other contest can or should be able to say that. And I have no idea how any newspaper, magazine or news bulletin was prepared in Argentina or Brazil that day, as surely every working journalist was at this game.

As soon as Atletico Madrid star Sergio Aguero scored his second tap-in, the press pack was on the move to mark some territory for post-match reaction. Sensing something big, I followed a crew from Brazil's top channel, Globo.

The press conference room appeared to be under siege so we dodged the crowds and got to a TV in the media area outside the changing rooms in time to see Juan Riquelme seal the victory (Argentina's first against the old enemy for three years) and Brazil lose the plot with two late red cards.

The Globo boys, and their respective numbers from every corner of the globe (apart from Britain), were going nuts. This, they told me, would top the news and colour the entire Olympics for Brazilians. Never mind Bolt, forget Phelps, this is football, it's different. And we've just been whipped by them. Anybody but them.

So we waited. During this time, the press conference was cancelled, the rest of the media pack attempted to storm our area and all semblance of Olympic spirit was trampled under foot. The army of smiling Chinese volunteers were utterly routed. They were not ready for a story like this.

The Brazilian players started to traipse out first. Impressively accessorised and extravagantly tattooed, they looked devastated. My friends from Globo (we had been talking for an hour...about football, obviously) translated. Manchester United's Anderson wasn't sure went wrong but admitted Argentina played well, AC Milan prodigy Pato was sullen and thought his offside goal should have counted (he was right) and Sao Paulo midfielder Hernanes was just heartbroken.

"I don't know if the people back at home will remember this for long," he said. "But I will never forget this defeat."

The reporters told me the fans would not forget that quickly. Brazil's inability to win an Olympic football gold continues to frustrate and manager Dunga will now need two very impressive results in the upcoming World Cup qualifiers to save his job.

I managed to get a few words in with Lucas, who was shown red for kicking his Liverpool team-mate Javier Mascherano, and he too seemed very down but did say he felt the effort to get the team together was worthwhile. The clubs, you see, have got wise to the over-age trick and challenged the authorities' right to enforce the policy. The clubs won the argument but let it slide this time. They are unlikely to do so again.

The Argentine players, as you can imagine, were in high spirits. Real Madrid star Fernando Gago talked about being pleased to win playing "Argentine" football (lots of short passing, lung-busting support play and tireless harrying in defence) but admitted the win was all the sweeter for who it came against.

Riquelme tried hard to wipe the smirk from his face but failed. He settled for a policy of restating again and again the victory would be nothing without a gold medal on Saturday.

And that was largely that. But I was given one more rare treat, a front-row seat to watch an infamous Argentine bus party. Long before all the Brazilian players had reached their transport, the chanting and window drumming started from the victors' coach. I now know what Alan Shearer was talking about post-St Etienne 1998.

So this was sport of rare beauty, remarkable intensity, tangible passion and raw cruelty. But was it Olympic sport?

I don't know but I felt lucky to be there.

19.30 seconds? Jaws dropped. Gobs were smacked, flabbers were gasted.

That shouldn't have been possible. Michael Johnson's 200m world record was supposed to be untouchable. Usain Bolt was supposed to be tired after running eight races in six days.

Bolt, we should know now, makes the impossible real.

"I blew my mind," he said afterwards, "and I blew the world's mind."

This was one of the top two or three performances in athletics history, produced by a 21-year old who should probably now be hailed the finest sprinter the world has seen.

It sounds like too much, like hyperbole - but how can you argue with 9.69 and 19.30?

Bolt's 100m was a thing of brilliant insousiance, of spectacular exuberance.

On Wednesday night we saw a different Usain. Before he settled on his blocks, there was the same clowning and posing as before his record-breaking run last Saturday - wiping his hands across his glistening head at increasing pace before holding the archer's pose as the crowd roared its delight.

When the gun sounded, however, there was no coasting the last 20 metres, no holding his arms out like an airplane, no looking up at the stands as he flew towards the line.

Tonight, there was no mistaking the effort. He hammered out of the blocks, had a gap of three metres coming off the bend and then poured in every last drop of energy he had, gritting his teeth, driving with his arms, throwing himself at the line.

When he glanced to his left and saw the clock, he threw his head back and then collapsed to the track, forehead and hands flat on the ground.

The 200m is his event. This was the record he wanted.

"I knew I could go that fast," he said. "But I told myself if I was going to get the world record it had to be here, because the track is so fast.

"So I went out there and gave it my all, and left everything on that track."

So unique is Bolt that he does all this on a diet they've banned from school menus as unhealthy.

After getting out of bed at midday, he got his masseur to bring him some chicken nuggets for breakfast.

"Then I came straight to the track, and my massuers brought me some more nuggets," he said. "I just ate two though because my coach said I shouldn't eat so many nuggets."

Bolt had two great athletics heroes as a youngster - Johnson and Jamaican sprint great Don Quarrie.

In the last week, he has outdone them both, first by eclipsing Johnson's greatest single achievement and then becoming the first man since Quarrie to hold both 100m and 200m world records at the same time.

Steve Cram, who was commentating on the race for BBC Television, was stunned by what he saw.

"It's very hard to put that into perspective," he said. "Johnson's record was in the Bob Beamon league of world records, the sort that you think will stay around for 20 years.

"Those sort of records are generally only broken when you have at least a couple of great athletes going head-to-head. Usain did that entirely by himself.

"People haven't been getting close to this record. With Seb Coe's 800m world record, athletes were running close to it even when it wasn't being broken, but that's not the case with Johnson's mark.

"Bolt did it too into a headwind of 0.9 m/s. Without that, he would have gone closer to 19.20. It was a privilege to watch."

Had Bolt merely completed the sprint double, merely in a sluggush time of, oh, 19.60 or something, it still would have been a historic achievement.

The double's only previously been done eight times in the 24 Olympics since the 200m was introduced in 1900.

The last time it happened was when a 23-year-old Carl Lewis ran 19.80 seconds to take his third gold of the famous four, 24 years ago in Los Angeles.

The 200m final here wasn't the toughest line-up in Olympic history, weakened as it was in the absence of world champion Tyson Gay, who beat Bolt into silver in Osaka a year ago.

It wouldn't have made a jot of difference if it had been. Chuck in Johnson, Frankie Fredericks from the same Atlanta final, Lewis, Quarrie, Tommie Smith - take your pick.

They'd all have been left staring at Bolt's golden heels.

"Johnson revolutionised the sport, but I just changed it a bit," said Bolt modestly afterwards.

Johnson described Bolt as "Superman" after this run. Bolt's reaction to that comment told you a great deal.

"I'm Lightning Bolt! I'm not Flash Gordon or anybody. My name is Bolt - Lightning Bolt."

All while maintaining a rictus grin which would embarrass an angry hyena.

I did recently read that synchronised swimming doesn't now require its competitors to hold an incessant smile, but the performers still seem keen to show how much they're enjoying themselves while carrying out their routines.

If you've ever seen the camera shot from under the water, you'll get a much better idea of how difficult synchronised swimming really is.

The swimmers are like ducks, everything is going hammer and tongs under the water, while above it, everything is grace and serenity.

That's just one of the reasons I think synchronised swimming may well be one of the most impressive and skilful Olympic sports of all.

On Friday's edition of My Games we'll be talking about what you think is the most difficult and the most demanding Olympic sport.

You can e-mail us at mygames@bbc.co.uk or comment at the bottom of this blog.

Here's what a few current and former Olympians have to say:

There must be something about water sports that makes me gravitate towards them, because I would also nominate water polo as one of the most impressive, difficult and skilful Olympic sports.

The amount of skulduggery that goes on under the water is astonishing. Water polo players not only need to be fantastic swimmers with huge lung capacity, they also have to be very very strong.

Apart from water polo's physical battles, one of the biggest differences I can think of between synchronised swimming and water polo is that the swimmers ALWAYS perform the same routine/routines.

Endless practice makes perfect, but in water polo, the players have to react to any given situation, so they have to watch, think, and then react.

Apart from the tactics required to outwit an opponent, just think of the other skills required to be a top class water polo player, you've got to be able to control, defend, and pass the ball, you've got to be able to shoot from all angles and ranges, and you have to be able to defend, distract and dominate your opponent.

All while trying to stop from drowning! I am in awe of them all.

So let us know what you think is the most impressive Olympic sport, and who knows maybe some of the world's top athletes will share the same opinion.

Open water swimming took its bow at the Olympics today - and what a debut it was!

The 10k race had everything from controversy to a fantastic sprint finish - and two more medals for Britain thanks to Keri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten.

I really had my eyes opened to what a tough physical battle it is.

The girls were getting bashed and kicked in the face - and by no means always by accident.

There was a lot of physical contact - but that made it all the more fascinating to watch. It was clear to me that Cassie Patten was pulled back by the German swimmer Angela Maurer with about 150m to go.

That not only slowed Cassie down, but it allowed Larisa Ilchenko to get ahead, and the Russian went on to win.

I'm not saying that definitely deprived Cassie of gold - Ilchenko has more experience and she had not lost on the world stage since 2004.

But neither Cassie not the Russian were happy - there were a lot of dirty tactics out there. Ilchenko played the game and won.

She stuck behind the leaders and then struck in the final stretch. And it wasn't her who pulled Cassie back. In fact she felt hard done by the aggro too.

Afterwards she said: "I had to clash on numerous occasions. I was trying to break away from the Brazilians, they were quite aggressive, sometimes bordering on unsportsmanlike. This is swimming after all, not boxing."

But that's all part of the attraction of the event - there is a rule book (believe it or not) which states there should to be no physical contact - but no-one seems to take much notice!

The rules state that a swimmer can be yellow carded for interfering with another competitor - a whistle is blown, a card is shown and the swimmer has to acknowledge it before carrying on. If they get another one, they're out.

But maybe with a bit more experience we could have grasped the gold?

There were loads of cards flying about, yellow and red - it really was everyone for themselves.But neither of our girls got carded.

Maybe had we played the race in a bit less of a true British gentlemanly fashion, and played it a bit dirty, Cassie and Keri-Anne could have worked together to block the Russian out.

But as it is, a silver and a bronze medal was still a fairytale finish.And what a finish it was.

After almost two hours of swimming the three of them were swimming flat out for the line matching each other stroke for stroke.By the time they crossed there was just a few seconds between them.

Most people will not appreciate how much that race will have taken out of the girls.
It is two hours of swimming flat out.

You use up so many calories you can't swim that far at that pace without taking on food and water.

So during the race, officials hold out poles with baskets containing food and water, which the girls consume while flipped over on their backs.

It can lose you valuable time - but you can't do without it, especially water - the swimmers can get dehydrated even though they are surrounded by the stuff!

I thought the girls got their tactics just right here.

In order to cut down the time they spent on these transitions, they were carbo-loading for three days beforehand - and Cassie was even drinking lake water during the race, she was so determined not to stop.

It meant they didn't have to slow down for very long and that could stay out in front - a good idea because if the pack had caught them they'd have swum right over them!

Steve Parry was talking to BBC Sport's Claire Stocks