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After being told by some well-informed American journalists that I was mad to think Britain could win its first Olympic medal in the sport here in , I had tempered my aspirations somewhat and presumed they were probably quite right.

But after a disappointing American second score and as
began her test with 74% on the board, they actually came over to me to say: "Sorry, you were right!"

I still wasn't counting my chickens but for around two minutes it really was looking as if Laura might achieve a 70's score leaving the door just ajar for a Danish, Swedish and American mistake and therefore the possibility of that elusive bronze for GB.

But then it all went wrong, spooked at the big screen, Laura couldn't hold him, had to do the movement again and it was game over.

Afterwards she was big enough to blame herself saying: "He was going for gold, but I wasn't with him."

Then, shortly after my interview, she collapsed into the arms of team manager Richard Davison. She's said to be fine now, but the and effort involved in riding a test here, combined with the strain of being the youngest ever British Olympic dressage rider, took their toll on the 23-year-old.

It goes without saying that Anky van Grunsven and Isabell Werth were awesome. They were in a different league, and it's going to be really interesting to see who does what in the individual, but I won't say any more about it now for fear of being accused of simply telling you the obvious in this blog.

Thanks for your comments by the way, they really make me feel like getting up early every day, after very late nights at the stadium, to write this!

The show jumping gets under way today and we all met up with the team yesterday afternoon - well three of them anyway. clearly thought going shopping was more important than attending the team's first press conference.

Derek Ricketts didn't look too impressed about Nick's non-appearance and was quite happy to come clean as to his whereabouts. The rest were as professional as ever. Michael Whitaker was there too, but he looked a broken man and told us they still don't know what's wrong with .

I felt really sorry for him. He's spent goodness knows how many months preparing his horse for this one competition, not to mention all the boring press work involved, only for the horse to go lame two days before it starts.

Tim Stockdale, meanwhile said they're all desperate to get going. "We've been here so long with just one horse and you can't ride her for three hours a day," he added.

As someone who's never had more than one horse to ride, I found it strange they could be bored but I guess they don't have to look after the kids, clean the house and go to work!

said he can't really concentrate on sight seeing until the job's done and I liked his theory on Olympic success.

"I am going to try to jump clear every time, nice and simple, you can't go wrong then," he explained.

Let's hope that's what he does.