Finally the time has come after four long years, the 2012 London Olympics have started and the first day of competition didn't let anyone down. Today has seen the first matches of the Women's Football competition and one incident especially has the entire world buzzing at the moment. When the match between DPR Korea (North Korea) and Colombia was about to start the technical errors to end all technical errors happens; The flag is wrong for DPR Korea, but not just wrong, no it's South Koreas flag that comes up on the screen with the athletes. If you live under a rock and don't know how bad the relationship is between the two countries here's a recap: there is constant military action on the border, they threaten with war every couple of months and in the Olympic games any team competition they're in is set up so they won't face each other before an eventual final as a match between the two countries can be enough to spark war. The DPR Korean team was off course wildly offended by this and refused to play the match to start with, the match was postponed for over an hour before the team agreed to play after what I presume had to be after a mountain of apologies and groveling. This is the one technical error that really is going to go down in Olympic history as the worst of them all. You could tell in the match that the DPR Korea team was fired up and they gave it their all to beat Colombia 2-0, but in the last minutes of the game things got a bit to heated between the teams and three players ended up being carried of the field after injuries within a ten minute period.
The Great Britain team took to the field for their first match against New Zealand and you could almost feel the nerves thay had. The Women's team has never scored in an Olympic tournament and they desparetly wanted to win. At first it looked like New Zealand was the only team attacking, but after 15 minutes of akward play the brits turned it up and shifted the match in their favor. The GB team had the most amount of chances during the game, but New Zealand did give them a hard fight. In the end it was Stephanie Houghton who made history scoring GBR first Olympic goal and they won the match 1-0. Without a doubt the closest match of the day and I have a feeling New Zealand will bounce back. In the same group Brazil demolished Cameroon winning 5-0.Sweden had an easy time against South Africa winning 4-1, but the fans from South Africa on the stands got to see their team score their first ever Olympic goal and what a goal it was. Portia Modise lobbed the ball from around the half-way line of the pitch over the Swedish goalkeeper making the crowd go wild. In the same group Japan and Canada had a more even result, but it was Japan who controlled the match winning 2-1.
In the last group it looked like their might be a major upset when after 14 minutes France where up by two goals against USA the major favourite to win the tournament. However the USA team showed why they are favourites pulling themselves together and winning the match 4-0. In the same group as staded earlier the DPR Korea team beat Colombia 2-0 after having complete control of the game.
It was a thrilling game and it's clear that there are some strong teams this year in the Women's competition and I think it'll be interesting to see which teams make it to the quarter-finals. Tomorrow it's the start of the Men's competition and there's bound to be some good matches.
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