Wednesday 8 August Golds up for grabs 15 The big contest A relatively quiet day for gold medal contests

will be enlivened by several less heralded finals, including the men's team in table tennis and four golds in the canoe sprints. Tim Brabants took a year off after winning gold in Beijing in the 1000m K1 kayak single final and returned to his job as an A&E doctor. Since then, the 35-year-old has struggled with a serious tendon injury, had to win a race-off to secure his place in Team GB and earlier this week sneaked into the sprint final by just 0.049 seconds. "I'm not quite in Beijing shape, but I feel good," says Brabants. It would be a wonderful finale if he could defend his Olympic title, pitted against younger men in a gruelling race. Men's K1 kayak single final, 9.30am Grudge match It does not have quite the same edge as when the countries meet in football but Brazil v Argentina in the men's basketball quarter-finals is intriguing this year. After failing to qualify for the Olympics since 1996, Brazil shook things up by appointing an Argentine coach, Rubn Magnano, who guided his country to gold at Athens in 2004. The controversial choice was greeted with dismay at first but Magnano won over the doubters with qualification and now a place in the last eight. Can he mastermind a victory over his own countrymen? The winners will almost certainly meet USA in the semis unless Australia can spring an upset; Spain, No 2 in the world, have struggled but can now avoid the USA until, perhaps, the final. Argentina v Brazil, 8pm The Brit to watch Victoria Pendleton's room-mate in the athletes' village pedals into the limelight today: Shanaze Reade missed out on a medal in Beijing aged 19 when she crashed out on the final corner of the BMX competition. Four years older and wiser, Reade says she will continue her risk-taking approach. The BMX competition begins today. This time, Reade insists she is an underdog rather than the hot favourite she was in 2008. BMX women's seeding run, 3pm The big question Have you succumbed to the charms of beach volleyball? Horse Guards Parade may be a uniquely British style of beach but it's not only the poor prime minister whose tranquillity at No 10 has been trashed by the racket over his back fence. Has the lustre been lost in a noisy competition where the American Kerri Walsh Jennings says: "We want to crush everybody, we don't care where they're from," and Boris Johnson is photographed yawning during a match? If tonight's women's final can't rouse the mayor there is really no chance for the sport in Britain. It'll work better in Rio. Women's gold medal match, 9pm World record watch The American-Jamaican rivalry could spur on the contenders in the women's 200m: the Jamaican medallists in the 100m Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Veronica Campbell-Brown will be hungry for more. America's best hopes may lie with Allyson Felix, the quickest woman in the world at this distance so far this year.

Women's 200m final, 9pm Canoe Sprint 9:30am Wednesday sees four finals: the men's kayak single (K1) 1,000m, men's canoe single (C1) 1,000m, men's kayak double (K2) 1,000m and women's kayak four (K4) 500m. Richard Jefferies, Britain's only athlete in the canoe, bowed out of the sprinton Tuesday. Louisa Sawers, Rachel Cawthorn, Angela Hannah and Jess Walker will be competing in the women's kayak four. But the event everyone will be watching is the men's kayak single final, for which the defending champion Tim Brabants, who put his medical career on hold for one last shot at Olympic glory, qualified by only by 0.049sec. The 35-yearold had surgery in 2010 on a pectoral tendon injury and was the last of four qualifiers from his semifinal. Athletics 10am Wednesday sees qualification rounds in the men's pole vault, where Steven Lewis will be hoping to make up for Holly Bleasdale's disappointing sixth place, women's hammer and men's javelin. It is the first round of the men's 5,000m, women's 800m and the men's decathlon. The semi-finals of the men's 200m should see the defending champion Usain Bolt and his training partner, Yohan Blake, sail to the finals. Bolt ran a leisurely 20.39sec to win his heat. Plus, it is the men's 110m hurdles, though minus China's darling Liu Xiang, who limped out of the heats with a foot injury for the second consecutive Games, women's long jump, women's 400m hurdles and women's 200m. Sailing 1pm With the sailing team still buoyed by the success of Ben Ainslie, who secured his place in history by winning his fourth Olympic gold medal in the men's Finn, Team GB will be looking to Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes in the men's 49er. The two are currently in the bronze medal position but will be going all out for the gold. The women's 470 races continue and Great Britain go against Russia in the women's elliott 6m quarter-finals. Boxing 1:30pm With the introduction of women's boxing into the Olympics for the first time, the sport is in semi-final stages for the fly (51kg), lightweight (60kg) and middleweight (75kg). Russia's Elena Savelyeva made history last Sunday when she won the first ever women's Olympic boxing bout. Wednesday's events also include the men's light flyweight (49kg), men's light heavyweight (81kg) and men's light welterweight (64kg) which will see Thomas Stalker fight for at least a bronze medal in the quarterfinals. Basketball 2pm Team USA, who are undefeated and have won 13 gold medals since the 1936 Berlin Olympics, face off against Australia as the men's basketball reaches the quarter-final stage. Last Thursday the Dream Team set a world record for the highest total ever in Olympic play in their 156-73 rout of Nigeria. They will meet the winners of Brazil and Argentina in the next round, having already dispensed with the latter 126-97 on Monday night. Taekwondo 3pm The gold medal quest begins on Wednesday for the men's 58kg and women's 49kg. It is set to be an action-packed day with the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals all in the space of seven hours. Wu Jingyu, China's 25-year-old defending champion, will be on everyone's radar and has looked in imperious form so far. Brits to watch

Mo Farah, athletics: 5,000m, 10.45am The Somali-born Briton, who won one of the three gold medals during Team GB's Super Saturday, is to set run again in the men's 5,000m heats, and his family will no doubt be looking forward to joining him on another victory lap at the Olympic Stadium. Farah's outstanding run and marvellous sprint finish gave Britain its first ever Olympic gold medal in the 10,000m, even though at the age of 29 victory might have been beyond him. Farah is the 5,000m world champion and on Tuesday Sebastian Coe backed him to add the Olympic gold. "In every championship he has got a little better," Coe said. "Mo is fearless. I always thought his better chance was in the five." Britain will be hoping that Farah has had sufficient ice baths and rest to ensure further success. Tim Brabants, Canoe Sprint: men's kayak single (K1) 1,000m, 9.30am Tim Brabants, the defending champion, is not yet firing on all cylinders at London 2012. The 35-yearold made the final only after finishing last of the qualifiers in his semi-final, edging out Bulgaria's Miroslav Kirchev by just 0.049sec. After easing through his heat Brabants went off hard at the start, running second at the halfway point. But he struggled to maintain the ferocious pace and dropped back in the last 500 metres. Brabants said: "I'm not quite in Beijing shape, but I feel good. I'm in the final and anything can happen. It was a tough race, so I'm really relieved with that result. I drew the outside lane on the really bad side of the course, but the roar of the crowd was incredible and pushed me on." Nicola Adams, Boxing, women's fly 51kg, 1.45pm Britain's Nicola Adams is already guaranteed a medal after she outclassed Stoyka Petrova, 16-7. On Wednesday she fights India's five-time world champion Mary Kom and is hoping her size advantage will pay: Kom moved up two weight divisions in order to make the flyweight limit. The Leeds fighter, who said she enjoyed every moment of Monday's victory, was so dominant that she even had time to do an Ali shuffle in the final round. "It's going to be a tough match but I'm going to have the height and reach advantage and will try to use all my attributes," said Adams. "You've got to be special to win five world titles." Adams is the last British woman in the competition after Natasha Jonas lost a storming quarter-final battle to Ireland's Katie Taylor.