BBC Sport: Olympics blog

Shunyi Lake

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.

Water Cube, Beijing

It's ironic that Ryan Lochte could be making an attempt on Spitz's magic seven - if it wasn't for the freakish ability of his US team-mate Michael Phelps.

The pair of them could have done with a team of event co-ordinators and a project manager to get them through the finals this morning.

Firstly, Lochte was competing in two finals separated only by 25 minutes.

From the moment he got out of the pool after breaking the world record on the 200m backstroke he had to fight his way through 150 metres of the world's TV, radio and press media packed into the mixed zone wanting quotes for their pieces.

Michael Phelps showed no sign of letting up in his pursuit of breaking Mark Spitz's record for the most amount of medals won in one Olympic Games.

First he romped home in the 200m butterfly in a new world-record time.

He gave all swimmers around the world hope when he moaned he couldn't see down the last 100m due to his goggles filling up with water!

This is usually only a problem that faces young swimmers at club level. I'm just thankful he didn't stop and look for the lifeguard to tighten the strap.

"We will smash them up!" France's Alain Bernard boasted on Sunday after the heats of the men's 4x100m freestyle relay.

He had reason to be confident as he didn't even have to don his suit for the heats after substitute Boris Steimetz had taken care of his responsibilities in a time of 49.83 seconds.

When you consider world-record holder Bernard can go two seconds faster from a flat start, everybody knew the French had a three-second drop in the bag, putting them on course for a world record by at least two seconds.

So, after seeing the performance of the French, America's Michael Phelps must have been worried about the chance of winning eight gold medals slipping away.

We have learnt to have confidence in all the victories under his control but the relays still remain vulnerable. Would his team-mates keep his dream alive?

At the Water Cube, Beijing

If ever anyone was in any doubt about Michael Phelps' ability to become the greatest ever Olympian at a single Games they would surely have been silenced this morning.

Down at the Beijing H2O cube Phelps started his campaign with a world record performance of 4.03.84 in the 400m Individual Medley, a time that I once thought would be unattainable!!

At no point did Phelps look out of control and forged home in style.

There was an out of character display of emotion during his celebration and also on the victory podium where tears where shed.

After speaking to him earlier in the week I knew he was concerned about the 400IM more so than any of his other seven chances.

I'm Steve Parry and I've been working for 5 Live for the last six months on the Road to Beijing series, covering a wide variety of Olympic tales in a variety of sports.

But you may know me better without my clothes on!

This is my first Olympics working for the media, the last one in Athens was where I won my bronze medal in the 200m butterfly.

What a race that was - Michael Phelps broke the Olympic record to win gold, Japan's Takashi Yamamoto broke the Asian Games record for silver and I broke the Commonwealth Games record - and Princess Anne was dishing out the medals!

I'd been to Sydney in 2000 too and finished 5th.

I missed out in qualifying by fractions of a second in 1996 so watched it avidly on the TV, as I had in 2004 and 2000.

I'm an Olympics nut and am fascinated by all the various sports. If I wasn't at the swimming I'd make sure I went to watch all of them - though I would keep a closer eye on the gymnastics, cycling and rowing as I am good friends with Beth Tweddle, Chris Hoy and Alex Partridge.

I will be at the rowing lake - but only to cover the open-water swimming, where Cassie Patten and David Davies go for Team GB.

But my main job will be poolside in the Water Cube interviewing the swimmers after each race.