Summer Olympic Games Jacques Rogge described the Games as "Happy and Glorious". The host nation won 29 gold medals, the best haul for Great Britain since the 1908 Games in London. The United States returned to the top of the medal table after China dominated in 2008. The IOC had removed baseball and softball from the 2012 program. On a commercial level the Games were successful as they were the first in history to completely sell out every ticket, with as many as 1 million applications for 40,000 tickets for both the Opening Ceremony and the 100m Men's Sprint Final. Such was the
Great Britain at the 2000 Summer Olympics widespread expectations of the team were low. The Sydney Games was at the time the best performance by Great Britain in the Summer Olympic Games since 1920, with British competitors winning a total of 28 medals, 11 of which were gold. This represented a vast improvement in performance over the previous Summer Olympics in 1996, in which Great Britain won only one gold medal and 15 in total, and was the first of five consecutive Summer Olympics in which Great Britain would not only dramatically increase its overall performance and expectations but also see them dramatically increase its overall Summer