Olympics: Rowers Aim To End GB Gold Drought

Hopes are high that Great Britain's first gold medal-winning performances of London 2012 will come today in the rowing, cycling and swimming events.

Rowers Helen Glover and Heather Stanning will be going for a win in the women's pairs, while Bradley Wiggins will be targeting his fourth Olympic gold in the men's road cycling time trial.

Stanning, 27, and Glover, 26, are the favourites to take gold at Eton Dorney this morning, having broken the Olympic record in their heat.

They will be followed less than an hour later by the men's eight - Constantine Louloudis, Alex Partridge, James Foad, Tom Ramsey, Ric Egington, Moe Sbihi, Greg Searle and Matt Langridge, with Phelan Hill as cox.

Searle, 40, won gold in 1992 and bronze in 1996 and has come out of retirement for this event.

Wiggins, 32, is looking to add to his recent success at the Tour de France. A podium place in the 44km time-trial around Hampton Court this afternoon would give him a record seventh Olympic medal, one clear of rower Sir Steve Redgrave, who has six.

Fellow Briton Chris Froome is also in contention for a medal, while Emma Pooley will be aiming for glory in the women's 29km time trial.

She will be riding alongside Lizzie Armitstead, who on Sunday claimed Britain's first medal of the Games with silver in the road race.

This evening at the Aquatics Centre, Michael Jamieson and Andrew Willis will be competing in the men's 200m breast stroke.

Both stand a good chance of getting on to the podium after Jamieson qualified first in the semis and Willis came third.

Jemma Lowe could also just snatch a medal in the women's 200m butterfly final.

In gymnastics, Dan Purvis is in with a chance after finishing fourth at last year's World Championships and qualifying fifth.

Much of the focus will be on Wiggins who raced one of the best time trials of his career less than two weeks ago on his way to becoming the first Briton to win the Tour.

"I'll go out there and do the performance, I have done so well all year in time-trials and see if it is good enough on the day," he said modestly.

Teammate David Millar was more forthright: "Brad against the world when they're all on their own, he can wrap that up.

"He's got such incredible form and he's in such good spirits. I think we'll get our gold medal there."

Today's competitors will be hoping to go one better than the equestrian team, including the Queen's granddaughter Zara Phillips, who captured silver medals in the eventing at Greenwich Park on Tuesday.

Their success was followed by disappointment for Britain's female gymnasts, who failed in their bid to match their male counterparts' podium finish, by coming sixth in the team final.

Britain's relatively poor medal haul so far has apparently led to UK Sport, who provide athletes' funding, to lower their predicted total for GB at London 2012 from 70 to 60. The team brought home 47 medals from Beijing four years ago.

More British competitors arrived at the Olympic village from their training camp in Portugal on Tuesday.

Among them was heptathlon medal hopeful Jessica Ennis, who turned up just in time to meet royal visitors the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.

Ennis will start her campaign for gold when the athletics begins on Friday August 3.