China's Yi wins first gold of London Games

London, July 28 (Reuters) – Yi Siling of China hailed her life-changing moment after being presented with the first gold medal of the London Olympics by IOC President Jacques Rogge following her victory in the women's 10 metre air rifle on Saturday.
Yi finished with a winning total of 502.9 points after 40 shots in the qualifying round and 10 in the eight-woman final at the Royal Artillery Barracks.
Poland's Sylwia Bogacka, who led for most of the final, claimed silver with a total of 502.2 after a costly 9.7 shot in the eighth round. Yu Dan of China won bronze with a total of 501.5.
Yi, the world number one, smiled in delight as she scooped what is sure to be the first of many golds coming for China at the London Games.
"I feel very happy," Yi told reporters through an interpreter in between posing with her medal for photographers.
"For the first round and the last round I was very nervous and didn't know what I was doing.
"I think this is going to bring some changes to my life as well."
Among the 2,000 spectators in attendance for the final was International Olympic Committee President Rogge, who clapped from his seat when Yi was confirmed the winner as Chinese dignitaries around him leapt to their feet in delight.
"Yes I did (enjoy the shooting). It was very well presented there is a lot of suspense, it is a matter of tenths of points," Rogge told reporters.
"The crowd was very knowledgeable and very supportive."
Rogge said he would be attending all 26 sports in London and will present one more medal, at the men's marathon, the last he will do in his role which he steps down from next year.
Didn't Prepare
Enjoying an unusually high level of interest as the opening medal event, both Yi and Bogacka showed their prowess in the 56-woman qualifying round where they eased through with a near perfect 399 points out of a maximum 400 from 40 shots.
They were neck and neck after scoring 10.8 in the first round of the final, where shooters fired at a target with a maximum achievable score of 10.9.
Bogacka nudged ahead with a 10.3 in the second round after Yi could only manage a 10 and the Pole maintained her lead through five rounds with another 10.8.
Victory looked assured as Yi fell 0.7 points behind after Bogacka fired a 10.5 in the seventh round with the duo way ahead of the other six competitors, but nerves inevitably played a part.
A poor 9.7 in the eighth round was capitalised on by the 23-year-old Chinese, who fired a scintillating 10.7 to turn a 0.3- point deficit into a 0.7 lead.
Yi then kept her composure to close out with 10.3 and 10.5 efforts to seal her first Olympic gold.
"I don't feel like a loser because I'm second," Bogacka told reporters with a rueful smile.
"It happens sometimes," she said of the crucial eighth-round shot. "I didn't prepare everything for this shot and that is the reason why I shot nine."
Yi said she had been lucky to gain victory but her greater consistency in the final, where her lowest score was 10, proved the difference with Bogacka twice hitting nines.
For Yi it brought an end to a long wait for her moment to shine after she became the first woman to qualify for the Games in 2010 following her victory at the world championships.
Nine months in a training camp followed in preparation for her first Olympics.
"I feel there has been a lot of pressure these last two years," Yi said, after security had to step in to remove the hoards of Chinese media who thronged her as she made her way to the news conference.
"Now I got the gold medal for the Olympic Games I feel very happy and very excited and... I feel the pressure has been released."

Games open with rousing romp through British life

Fireworks explode over the Olympic stadium during the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games July 27, 2012. Photo: Reuters Reuters, London

Seven teenagers lit the Olympic cauldron on Friday, at an opening ceremony starring the queen and seen by millions around the world, in a touching finale to a high-octane, musical celebration of British history and culture.
True to the London Games' motto of 'Inspire a Generation', organisers put unknown youngsters in the global limelight rather than established sporting greats in the closing act of a madcap four hours of comedy, spectacle, noise and emotion.
"I declare open the Games of London celebrating the 30th Olympiad of the modern era," said Queen Elizabeth, the 86-year-old monarch, followed by a fanfare and explosion of fireworks.
The ceremony on a cool, cloudy but dry London night kicks off 16 days of sporting thrills and spills up and down the country, as more than 16,000 athletes from 204 countries vie for the Holy Grail of sport - Olympic gold.
Celebrating her 60th year on the throne this year, the monarch played a starring role in a ceremony which film director Danny Boyle turned into an unabashed celebration of the host nation stamped with an unmistakeably cinematic style.
Early on in the show, which ran well over time, Her Majesty appeared in a short, tongue-in-cheek film also starring Daniel Craig in his role as James Bond.
Wearing his trademark tuxedo, 007 enters Buckingham Palace and the queen, with two corgis at her feet, turns from a writing desk and says simply: "Good evening, Bond".
The moment drew a huge cheer from the crowd, not used to seeing Her Majesty play such an informal part in proceedings, and coincided with a resurgence in the royal family's popularity following the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Doubles of Bond and the queen then parachuted from a helicopter above the stadium, built on the Olympic Park in a once derelict area of London's East End, before schoolchildren sang the national anthem and the Union flag was raised.
LOST IN TRANSLATION?
The quintessentially British flavour to the ceremony, accompanied by a stunning soundtrack of hits from Elgar to U2, caused plenty of confusion among international journalists struggling to describe it to readers back home.
"It couldn't get any more British if it came drenched in tea," quipped the Hollywood Reporter movie magazine.
But others from abroad warmed to Boyle's vision.
"It really played to what Britain does best," said Sarah Clarke, a visitor from South Africa, as she left the stadium after the show. "It was a British ceremony but absolutely we felt included."
The ceremony, inspired by Shakespeare's "The Tempest", began with Britain's first Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins ringing a giant 23-tonne Olympic bell.
Played out before world leaders, European royalty and dignitaries including US First Lady Michelle Obama, the show switched to the playful recreation of an English rural idyll with grassy meadows, fences, a water mill and maypoles.
A cast including shepherdesses, sheep, geese, dogs and a village cricket team filled the stage during the one-hour prologue to the show that included a dramatic, low-level fly-past by the jets of the Royal Air Force's Red Arrows stunt team.
After "England's green and pleasant land" came the "dark Satanic mills" of William Blake's famous poem.
Titled "Pandemonium", the next phase saw the grass uprooted and fences torn down to be replaced by a blackened landscape of looms and foundries that conjured the Industrial Revolution.
To the deafening beat of hundreds of drummers, giant chimneys rose from the ground and began to belch smoke as a small army of volunteers, dressed as 19th century factory workers, forged one of the five Olympic rings.
The giant orb was raised to the sky to join the four others, letting off a fountain of sparks and drawing gasps from many in the audience.
All around, especially designed "pixel" light boxes installed next to every seat accompanied each scene and created giant images of waves, flags and words.
In the second of three "acts", Boyle paid homage to the National Health Service, an emotive subject in Britain where people hold the right to free health care close to their hearts.
Hundreds of dancing and roller-skating nurses and doctors pushed beds on to the now empty stage and when the beds were illuminated, they spelled "GOSH" for the cherished Great Ormond Street children's hospital in London.
"The atmosphere was electric coming out into the stadium - like we could take over the world with our beds!", said Rachel Dobbin, a speech and language therapist from London who performed as a nurse in the ceremony.
SPOOKY VILLAINS
Giant representations of famous villains from English literature, including JM Barrie's Captain Hook, JK Rowling's Voldemort and Ian Fleming's Childcatcher, rose from their beds.
They were quickly vanquished by dozens of Mary Poppins characters descending from cables criss-crossing the stadium roof, carrying brightly illuminated umbrellas.
Comedian Rowan Atkinson, adopting the globally recognised character of mischievous Mr Bean, brought the house down as he joined the London Symphony Orchestra playing a single note throughout the score of the Olympic film "Chariots of Fire".
The final act, starring hundreds of young nightclubbing dancers, was a breathless journey through popular British culture over the last five decades featuring music from everyone from the Sex Pistols to Queen and the Jam to the Who.
Sitting at a computer outside a small house on stage was Tim Berners-Lee, the Londoner who invented the worldwide web and enabled the explosion of social networking that is playing a major part at the London Games.
Mid-ceremony he tweeted to his almost 83,000 followers "This is for everyone" which also projected across the spectators.
Next came the parade of athletes, with the Greek team keeping up Olympic tradition and leading out thousands of competitors dressed in colourful national costumes.
They marched around the stadium in double-quick time, urged on by the up-tempo beats of the Bee Gees band and others. The world's fastest man Usain Bolt strode confidently with the Jamaican flag while playing up to cameras and cheering fans.
Libya and Egypt represented a new chapter in their histories after the tumultuous events of the Arab Spring while the first ever female Olympic athletes from Saudi Arabia, Brunei and Qatar made appearances.
Britain, dressed in white and gold and hoping to repeat its medals success of Beijing in 2008, entered last to thunderous roars and the thumping strains of David Bowie's lyrics "We Can Be Heroes" as ticker tape floated down from the roof.
Boxing's most famous fighter Muhammad Ali briefly appeared to hold the Olympic flag, looking frail, wearing dark glasses and leaning on his wife.
The Olympic torch, ending an 8,000-mile odyssey across the country, was driven in a speedboat up the River Thames by former England soccer captain David Beckham and handed to Britain's most successful Olympian Steve Redgrave.
He then passed it on to seven youngsters - Callum Airlie, Jordan Duckitt, Desiree Henry, Katie Kirk, Cameron MacRitchie, Aidan Reynolds and Adel.

 
The GREAT Britain is ready to showcase itself as the country's politicians brag about what it "has done to shape the modern world". Toufique Imrose Khalidi has been taking a stroll across the city that's hosting the modern Olympic Games for a record third time
What a sight at the River Thames!
In its final day on Friday of a journey across Britain cheered by a fourth of the island's population lining up its path over 70 days, the Olympic flame was being carried on board the royal barge Gloriana.
As many as 50 boats formed a flotilla centering the million-pound royal vessel, in a fantastic show reflecting London's waterborne heritage in both sport and business. The flame arrived at the City Hall before its final lap later in the evening.
The 8000-mile relay in the UK by 8000 torchbearers will end at the brand new Olympic Stadium, built in a rundown part of London's poorer East End, where someone – and no one knows who – will finally light the Cauldron.
Organisers have kept it a closely guarded secret, and speculations have gone in all directions about who will join the league of such luminaries as boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
The speculators' list of the likely torchbearer doing the final lap includes Steve Redgrave, with five Olympic gold medals in his glittering career, Prince William and David Beckham.
At 8:12am, the Big Ben chimed, for the first time since the funeral of King George VI in 1952, for three minutes heralding the day of festival and celebration along with bells across the country.
A three-hour spectacle awaits an estimated one billion people watching it live on the Internet and TV, and the "idiosyncratic" Opening Ceremony directed by Danny Boyle, the creator of Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire, promises both "pomp and punk" faces of the host country.
Boyle has made it clear that he has never been under the illusion of 'pleasing everyone' as the event will celebrate all the chaos, contradictions and complexities of the country.
Anyone interested in the British history will be enlightened, as the 27 million pound opening show will mark the nation's heritage, its economic transformation through the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and today's pop culture.
William Shakespeare's Tempest will provide the theme for a part of the show – and Dickens, Darwin and Newton will all be there in a collage of a bit of everything from the Arts, showbiz and inventions.
The Olympics minister, Jeremy Hunt, has dubbed it "the biggest single ad for Britain".
He declared hours before the greatest show on Earth: "This will not be a moment for modesty."
Hunt spoke of "amazing contribution we made to democracy … in a quiet Brtitish way.
"We are very very proud of what Britain has done to shape the modern world."
Queen Elizabeth will formally declare the Games open at the 60,000-capacity stadium at Stratford in presence of VVIPs like US First Lady Michelle Obama. Among the guests will be Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
"Every few years these Games bring pride, excitement and wonder to the world," the First Lady said as she cheered up the American athletes training to retain their top position on the medals table.
She has fared a lot better than her husband's challenger in the come presidential election who has questioned London's preparedness for the extravaganza ahead of his trip to London.
"We will prove Mit Romney wrong," Minister Hunt declared after the Republican hopeful's faux pas.
The Prime Minister, David Cameron, insisted Britain was ready. "It's a great opportunity to show the world the best of Britain."
Scores of events weeks before and during the Games, to be followed by the Paralympic Games, have indeed targeted showcasing Britain's best and the brightest.
With 11 million tickets – prices ranging between 2012 and 50 pounds – sold and some 14700 athletes vying for glory, Britain has also braced itself for disruptions caused by the biggest security operation since the Second World War.
Once the Opening Ceremony is over, it is the sport that takes the centre stage. And Bangladesh has dispatched five athletes to fly the nation's flag among the 204 that have been participating.

London, July 27 (Reuters) - James Bond actor Daniel Craig and Queen Elizabeth stole the show at an exuberant 2012 Olympic opening on Friday, appearing together in a short film beamed to 60,000 cheering spectators in the main stadium and a billion more viewers around the world.
The comedic, quintessentially British moment complemented a show that film director Danny Boyle, an Oscar winner for "Slumdog Millionaire", turned into an unabashed celebration of the host nation's history, culture and eccentricity.
In the tongue-in-cheek film Craig wears his trademark tuxedo and enters Buckingham Palace, the 86-year-old monarch with her two corgis at her feet, in a dramatic cinematic debut, turns from a writing desk and says simply: "Good evening, Mr. Bond."

The moment drew a huge cheer from the audience, not used to seeing Her Majesty play such an informal part in proceedings and coincides with a resurgence in the royal family's popularity following the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Doubles of Bond and the queen then parachuted onto the roof of the stadium from a helicopter, built on the Olympic Park in a once derelict area of London's East End, and the national anthem and Union flag raising followed.
The surreal footage and stunt had been kept a closely guarded secret in the buildup to the ceremony, which also includes speeches, the athletes' parade and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron.
Over the following 17 days, the drama of sporting contest takes hold the length and breadth of Britain as more than 16,000 athletes from 204 countries will aim to achieve their ultimate dream - Olympic gold.
RURAL IDYL
The ceremony, inspired by Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and packed with literary and musical references, began with a recreation of an English rural idyll complete with grassy meadows, fences, hedges, a water mill, maypoles and a cottage.
A cast including shepherdesses, sheep, geese, dogs and a village cricket team filled the stage during the one-hour prologue to the show that included a dramatic, low-level fly-past by the jets of the Royal Air Force's Red Arrows stunt team.
After "England's green and pleasant land" came the "dark Satanic mills" of William Blake's famous poem.
In the next phase titled "Pandemonium", grass was brutally uprooted and fences dismantled to be replaced by a blackened scene that recalled the Industrial Revolution.
To the deafening beat of hundreds of drummers, giant chimneys rose from the ground and began to belch smoke as a small army of volunteers, dressed as 19th century factory workers, forged one of the five Olympic rings.
The giant orb was raised to the sky to join the four others, letting off a fountain of sparks, drawing gasps from many in the audience.
All around, especially designed "pixel" light boxes installed next to every seat accompanied each scene with giant images of waves, flags and words.
At one end of the stadium stands a grassy knoll topped by a tree and at the other end the 23-tonne bell, which Bradley Wiggins, Britain's winner of this year's Tour de France, rang to kick off proceedings.
In front of each is a "mosh pit" of people conjuring the spirit of the Glastonbury music festival and Last Night of the Proms classical concert.
BOYLE'S SURREAL KALEIDOSCOPE
Among the crowd were celebrities, ordinary Londoners, visitors from abroad and dignitaries including U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama as well as presidents, prime ministers and European royalty.
Boyle's colorful and sometimes chaotic vision aims to create a kaleidoscope of what it means to be British, an approach that could appeal to the home audience but leave many foreign viewers scratching their heads at times.
Divided into three main sections, it also celebrated the National Health Service, cherished by Britons despite being a political hot potato at a time when austerity measures have forced major spending cuts.
Boyle has conceded that audiences overseas may be confused.
"In the second half of it you'll see what we call the industrial parade which is actually slightly surreal, some of you will be baffled, I can guarantee it," he told reporters.
He also paid tribute to the 10,000 volunteers, cast and crew taking part in the ceremony.
"We hope the feeling of the show is a celebration of generosity," he said. "There's no better expression of that than these volunteers."
Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney will be among the many performers on the night, but the biggest secret of all - who has the honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron at the end of the show - remains a mystery.

South Korean archer Im breaks world record

London, July 27 South Korea's Im Dong-hyun broke his own 72-arrow world record in the archery ranking round for the London Olympics with a score of 699 on Friday.
Im and his South Korean team mates, Kim Bub-min and Oh Jin-hyek, also broke the team world record for 72 arrows with a score of 2,087 at Lord's Cricket Ground.
Im, who won team gold at the 2008 and 2004 Games, lost his world number one ranking to American Brady Ellison in 2011 but has been in sensational form in the lead-up to the London Games, winning the test event at Lord's late last year and setting the previous record of 696 in Turkey in May.
The Korean, who suffers from strong myopia and just aims at a "blob of yellow colour" in the centre of the target 70 metres away, was happy to be at the top of the ranking round but was not about to get carried away.
"It's just the first round so I won't get too excited about it," he said.
Im will face 64th ranked archer Emanuele Guidi of San Marino in the first round. Guidi scored 110 points less than Im.
Im's team mate Kim would also have broke the record after shooting 698, while the third member of the team Oh finished with 690.
South Korean head coach Jang Young-sool was delighted his team had shot so well in the ranking round and said the damp drizzly conditions had not been a problem.
"It was good weather to shoot," he told Reuters. "A world record gives us confidence for the rest of the competition."
Despite winning the last three team gold medals, South Korea's men have yet to win the individual title.

Warner Bros. pushes 'Gangster Squad' to 2013

The July 20 shooting spree at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colorado, seems ultimately to have had a relatively modest impact on the release of the superhero blockbuster,

But it has thrown a major wrench into Warner Bros.' plans for another film, the upcoming action-drama "Gangster Squad." In the immediate wake of the shooting,  which — in a grisly unintended echo of the Aurora tragedy — featured a scene of mobsters bursting through a movie screen and firing machine guns at people seated in a movie theater.

Days later, the studio and director Ruben Fleischer ("Zombieland") decided to cut, or at least extensively rework, that scene. Given that the movie-theater-gangland-massacre sequence was a key plot point in the film — which stars Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling as Los Angeles cops assigned to take down real-life 1940s mob kingpin Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) — any changes to it inevitably would necessitate script revisions and reshoots, jeopardizing the film's planned Sept. 7 release date.

Now a source confirms that Warner Bros. is pulling the film off of the fall schedule. No new date has been determined yet, though according to the Hollywood Reporter, the studio is eyeing dates in January as a possibility.

Warner Bros. declined to comment on the decision, but clearly moving the film will both allow the filmmakers the time required to make changes to the movie and give the studio an opportunity to reboot a marketing campaign that was derailed by horrible circumstances no one could have foreseen.

T.J. Jackson, brothers inspired by famous uncle

TJ Jackson was named temporary guardian of Michael Jackson's three children.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- Tito Joseph "TJ" Jackson, who on Wednesday was named temporary guardian of Michael Jackson's three children, was inspired by his famous uncle to form a singing group with his brothers.

TJ had been placed in charge of the children when the kids' grandmother, Katherine, left home on July 15 and will watch the children while the legal proceedings play out in a California court.

TJ Jackson, 34, is the son of Tito Jackson and the late Delores Martes Jackson. TJ and his older brothers, Taj and Taryll, form the R&B group 3T.

Jackson is married with three children, a boy and two girls.

A 1995 article in People described the brothers' childhood as normal despite their famous father, uncle and aunts.

Taj Jackson told the magazine: "My mom made sure that we had a real childhood, with birthday parties, baseball, family outings, all that stuff."

They were close to their Uncle Michael. "He's like a third parent to us," Taj told People in 1995.

Eventually the brothers went along on one of his tours and decided to form a singing group and were recording their first album in 1994 at the time of their mother's death.

Initially it was believed Delores Martes Jackson, who had divorced from Tito Jackson in 1993, drowned in a swimming pool, but the case was reopened, and her sons in 1995 filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against a man they accused of killing her. Three years later, Donald Bohana was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, according to People magazine.

The last 3T album came out in 2005, according to Billboard.com, but the brothers performed together at a tribute concert for their late uncle in October 2011.