What to watch for - Day 6.

It was a great night last night for Team USA in the Olympics. Two gold medals in the pool, along with a silver and bronze, and gold in the women’s gymnastics team final. If you didn’t enjoy last night, you need to ask me to take you off this email list. Here’s the good news: we are only a fourth of the way through the games. So much more to come!

There will be four medal events in the pool today with the men’s 200m breaststroke and 100m freestyle and the women’s 200m butterfly and the 4x200m freestyle relay.

The U.S. has been doing a great job of getting both its swimmers into the event finals. Unfortunately, Cullen Jones did not qualify for the finals in the 100m free, so it’ll be up to Nathan Adrian to bring home a medal, hopefully gold, in that event. He had a great relay split in the 4x100 Sunday and turned in the second best qualifying time. Adrian will have tough competition in several great swimmers. Australia’s James Magnussen was the top qualifier and is the current world champion. World recorder holder Cesar Cielo of Brazil will be in lane two, while France’s Yannick Agnel, who chased down Locthe in the relay Sunday, will be in lane one.

The crowd should be very into the final for the 200m breaststroke with two Brits in the race. Americans Scott Weltz and Clark Burckle will be in lanes six and seven, while there will be no Chinese swimmers in this final.

In the women’s 200m fly, Americans Cammille Adams and Kathleen Hersey are hoping for a medal. Hersey was the top qualifier but look out for China’s Zige Liu who is the reigning Olympic champion and the world record holder in the event.

Missy Franklin will be back in the pool after failing to medal in the 200m free yesterday. Tonight is the 4x200m free relay for the women and we’ll find out who is in the final after qualifying today. It’s a pretty sure bet that Franklin will be on the final relay team, as well as the new Olympic champion in the 200m free – American Allison Schmitt.

Tonight is also the men’s all-around competition in gymnastics. Unlike the women, there was no controversy with who qualified for Team USA. Danell Leyva qualified in first, while John Orozco qualified fourth. Hopefully they can put Monday’s debacle behind them and show what they can do. The favorite, 2008 silver medalist Koheu Uchimura of Japan, qualified ninth because of the poor performance by the Japanese Saturday. If he can actually do what he’s capable of, he might be hard to beat. The crowd favorite is likely to be GBR’s Kristian Thomas who was a big factor in helping the team to a surprise silver bronze medal. The Chinese won the team title and will be looking for one of their athletes to take the all-around as well.

The U.S. will attempt its third straight medal in diving after suffering a 12-year drought, which was snapped on Sunday. Today is the men’s 3m synchronized springboard with Americans Kristian Ipsen and Troy Dumais. Of course the Chinese are favored to win this event.

I typically wouldn’t bring up fencing but Mariel Zagunis was the flag bearer for the Americans, so I’ll go ahead and mention what she’s attempting to accomplish today. Zagunis will go for the three-peat in individual sabre. She is actually the only person to ever win gold in this particular event since it debuted in Athens.