Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics On 7 August 2012, Great Britain had reached its 48-medal target, and surpassed the 19 gold-medal tally from Beijing, making it the most successful Olympics since 1908. Great Britain left the Summer Olympic Games with a total of 65 medals (29 gold, 17 silver, and 19 bronze), finishing third in the medal table rankings, and fourth in the total number of medal rankings. At least one medal was awarded to Team GB in seventeen sports, eleven of them contained at least one gold. British athletes dominated the medal standings in cycling, wherein they won a total of 12 Olympic medals,
Summer Olympic Games swimmer Mark Spitz, Lasse Virén (of Finland)'s back-to-back gold in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters (defeating American distance running great Steve Prefontaine in the former), and the winning of three gold medals by 16-year-old Soviet gymnastic sensation Olga Korbut - who thrilled the world with an historic backflip off the high bar. Korbut, however, failed to win the all-around, losing to her teammate Ludmilla Tourischeva. There was no such tragedy in Montreal in 1976, but bad planning and fraud led to the Games' cost far exceeding the budget. The Montreal Games were the most expensive in Olympic history, until