Olympics 2008

Let's start today with another question - who has the distinction of being Britain's first Olympic champion?

What do you mean you want a clue?

OK, he was Scottish, won his gold in the weightlfting and also competed in the 100m sprint, wrestling, and rope climb at the 1896 Games - his name will follow later (but no using internet search engines!)

As has been pointed out on a previous edition of this countdown, Evangelos Zappas founded the first modern international Olympic Games when competitors from Greece and the Ottoman Empire took part in a Games in Athens city square in 1859.

Further Games followed in the Panathenian Stadium in 1870 and 1875, before Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee and the modern Olympic Games took on a new life.

The 1896 Games showcased 43 events across nine sports, compared to the 302 events across 28 sports that will make up the Beijing Games.

And the first British Olympic champion?

Launceston Elliot won the now defunct one-handed lift, and only finished second in the two-handed lift because the judge deemed that his opponent had used a better style.

You'll thank me for providing that useful nugget of information when the obligatory Olympics special round comes up in your local pub quiz while the Games are on this summer.

Just three silvers and three bronzes have been added to Britain's medal haul since Elliot's 1896 showing, the last of which came at the 1984 Los Angeles Games when David Mercer finished third.

The chances of Britain ending the 24-year medal drought in Beijing are minimal as no lifters made it through qualifying.

Michaela Breeze (in the video above), who finished ninth in the women's 58kg class in Athens, may receive an invitational place, but the sport's governing body - the International Weightlifting Federation - has delayed Olympic nominations following a backlog of doping samples at its laboratories.

Whether Breeze goes or not, there is no doubting that British weightlifting is some way behind the rest of the world - what needs to be done to raise the bar?