Canada at the Summer Olympics became the first Canadian Summer Olympian to win a medal in four straight Olympics. After George Hodgson won two gold medals in the 1912 Stockholm games, it would be 72 years before Alex Baumann became the second Canadian swimmer to win Olympic gold, when he won both individual medley events in world record time in the 1984 Los Angeles games. Victor Davis (1984), Anne Ottenbrite (1984), Mark Tewksbury (1992) and Penny Oleksiak (2016) are the only other Canadian swimmers to win gold medals. In 2004, Canada failed to win a medal of any colour in swimming for the first time
United States at the 2008 Summer Olympics became a major power in the Olympics from 1904 to 2000, winning 47 of 90 gold medals, but left out of the medals for the second consecutive Olympics. On July 15, 2008, the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) named the rider/horse combinations for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team. The horses were shipped to England on July 17, placed under quarantine on July 22, 2008, and shipped to Hong Kong for the Olympic Games on July 30, 2008. Before the start of the games, Heidi White-Carty and her horse Northern Spy withdrew from the U.S. eventing team because of a veterinary