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 2008 Summer Olympics since qualifying quotas were introduced after the 1992 Summer Olympics. Crews were fielded in 12 out of a possible 14 events making Team GB the fourth biggest team. Medals were won in 6 events, which meant that GB topped the rowing medal table. The medals won included gold in the coxless four, for the third successive games, and Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter winning Great Britain's first ever lightweight rowing Olympic medal in the men's lightweight double sculls. <nowiki>*</nowiki> Substitutes in final because of illness: Louisa Reeve for Howard and Alice Freeman for Knowles Great Britain entered crews in all