OLYMPICS LONDON 2012: Team GB schedule – Saturday July 28th

By Sportsbeat staff, London 2012

MARK Cavendish hopes to get Great Britain off to a flying start as he seeks to add the London 2012 Olympic cycling road title to his win at last year's World Championships in Copenhagen.

MANX MISSLE: Mark Cavendish looks to clinch gold in the cycling road race as Great Britain chase a fourth place finish in the medals table

The race will start on The Mall at 10am, with riders heading south-west, crossing the River Thames at Putney Bridge and continuing through Richmond Park, Bushy Park and past Hampton Court Palace.

The Surrey section of the course includes nine laps of the spiteful Box Hill before they return shortly before 4pm to London for a finish in front of Buckingham Palace 155 miles later.

Cavendish, who won four stages of the recent Tour de France, including the showpiece final stage in Paris, is the odds-on favourite and hundreds of thousands are expected to line the streets for a race predicted to conclude with one of his trademark bunch sprints.

The Manx Missile will be supported by Tour de France winner and runner-up Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, who are aiming for gold in next week's time trial plus key lieutenants from his historic win in Denmark last year David Millar and Ian Stannard.

Lightweight boxer Natasha Jonas faces a potential quarter-final tie with number one seed Katie Taylor if the Liverpool-born lightweight overcomes American Quanitta Underwood.

Jonas became the first British female boxer in Olympic history to qualify for the games in May and victory for the southpaw over Irish medal hopeful Taylor would earn her a chance at a medal.

Middleweight Savannah Marshall received a first round bye, as did 2011 European Championship winner flyweight Nicola Adams.

Team captain and lightweight fighter Tom Stalker can plot a realistic route to a medal but may face the challenge of Ukrainian Denis Berinchyk – his conqueror at last year's world championships.

Lowestoft middleweight Anthony Ogogo was left with mixed feelings after he was drawn against Junior Castillo Martinez of the Dominican Republic.

However, if he does make it past the lowly Martinez, Ogogo has world number one and top seed Ieygev Khytrov lying in wait for him after the Ukranian received a first round bye.

Super heavyweightAnthony Joshua will face Erislandy Savon in the first round while Commonwealth silver medallist Josh Taylor fights Brazilian Robson Conceicao at lightweight.

At flyweight, number two seed Andrew Selby was handed a first-round bye and could face Ireland's Michael Conlan in the semi-finals.

Bantamweight Luke Campbell was also handed a first round bye and will be happy to have many of his biggest rivals on the opposite side of the draw.

Welterweight Fred Evans faces Algerian Ilyas Abbadi and could fight Lithuanian Egidijus Kavaliauskas who stopped him at the world championships.

Hannah Miley is Britain's top medal hope in the pool as the heats and final of her speciality 400 metre medley event, in which she won silver at last year's World Championships, are held.

But she faces defending Olympic champion Steph Rice, world champion Elizabeth Beisel and Spanish threat Mireia Belmonte Garcia while Team GB's Aimee Wilmott is looking for a final place, which will be held shortly after 9pm.

Roberto Pavoni and Joe Roebuck are entered in the men's 400m medley while Ellen Gandy, a world silver medallist in the 200m butterfly last year, goes over half the distance alongside sprint freestyle specialist Fran Halsall.

David Carry, whose fiancé is open water world champion Keri-Anne Payne, left it late to qualify for the Games and will be determined to seize his chance in the 400m freestyle, in which he is a former Commonwealth Games champion and Craig Benson competes in the 100m breaststroke heats.

Halsall will also be back in the water for the 4x100m freestyle relay, but the women's 4x200m relay is considered a better British medal prospect, in a squad that includes Amy Smith, Rebecca Turner, Jessica Lloyd and Caitlin McClatchey.

Swimming events are heats and finals for relays and distances over 400m and heats, semis and finals for all other events.

Great Britain start their campaign at the Olympic rowing regatta at 9.30am, where expectations of success is high.

In Beijing, Team GB rowers won six medals, including two golds, and they were top nation on the medal table at last year's World Championships.

The host nation is represented in all disciplines apart from the women's single sculls and a number of top medal hopes start their Games.

In-form women's pair Heather Stanning and Helen Glover are in action, as is in the men's eight, which includes 1992 gold medallist Greg Searle and single sculler Alan Campbell.

Also in action are the women's quad, including two-time silver medallist Debbie Flood, Bill Lucas and Sam Townsend in the men's double sculls and the men's lightweight four, quadruple sculls and pair combination of George Nash and Will Satch.

Jennifer McIntosh is Team GB's first potential medallist when she competes in the women's 10m air rifle competition at Greenwich Park.

Qualifying starts in the men's gymnastics with Beijing bronze medallist Louis Smith looking to secure his place in the pommel horse final and the British team, which includes Dan Purvis, Matt Whitlock, Sam Oldham and Kristian Thomas needing to finish in the top eight to contest Monday's final at the North Greenwich Arena.

Over at Wimbledon, Anna Keothavong has a tough draw against former world number one Caroline Wozniacki in the tennis women's singles while Elena Baltacha will face Hungary's Agnes Szavay, who has lost their only previous encounter.

Andy Murray starts his singles campaign on Sunday, but partners brother Jamie in the men's doubles against Austria's Jurgen Melzer and Alexander Peya.

Heather Watson and Laura Robson – who will now also compete in the singles draw after Croatia’s Petra Martic withdrew – open their doubles campaign against a highly-fancied German pair, Angelique Kerber and Sabine Lisicki.

Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins will have it equally tough against Julien Benneteau and Richard Gasquet.

British badminton mixed doubles hopefuls Chris Adcock and Imogen Bankier return to Wembley Arena, where last year they won world silver, to start their campaign with a group stage match against Russia's Alexandr Nikolaenko and Valeria Sorokina while Susan Egelstaff takes on Slovakia's Maja Tvrdy in the women's singles.

British table tennis number one Paul Drinkhall will face Ibrahem Al-Hasan of Kuwait or Congo's Saheed Idowu – who will battle it out in the preliminary round.

While girlfriend Joanne Parker awaits the winner of Brazilian Caroline Kumahara's clash with Djibouti's Yasmin Hassan Farah.

Team GB are guaranteed to progress at least one women's foil fencer to the second round after teammates Sophie Troiano and Natalia Sheppard were drawn against each other in the first round – while Anna Bentley will take on Canada's Monica Peterson.

Steve Grotowski and John Garcia-Thompson make history as they become Britain's first-ever men's beach volleyball Olympians at Horse Guards Parade.

But it won't be easy as they will take on Canada's Joshua Binstock and Martin Reader, who only teamed up earlier this year but have been recording some impressive World Tour results.

Simon Terry, Larry Godfrey and Alan Wills are confident about their hopes in the men's team archery at Lord's after qualifying eighth through the ranking round.

Terry was part of the last British Olympic team to win an archery men's team medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games and all three will be looking to avenge their disappointing 12th place finish in Beijing.

Godfrey was most impressive in qualifying shooting a personal best score to rank fourth.

Rising judo star Ashley McKenzie faces a tough draw in the men's judo 60kg category when he takes on Japanese world number 10 Hiroaki Hiraoka, who is ranked 18 places above him.

Great Britain have never won team eventing gold but will start their four-day campaign with dressage events in Greenwich.

Piggy French will be watching from the sidelines after an injury to her horse Topper, which meant Nicola Watson was drafted in to join William Fox Pitt, Tina Cook and six-time Olympian Mary King - who have won six Olympic medals between them - and former world champion Zara Phillips.

Several British teams are in action, Hope Powell's women's footballers will hope to secure their quarter-final place, following their 1-0 win over New Zealand, against Cameroon in Cardiff.

But Team GB's women's volleyball, basketball and handball team face a step up in matches with Russia, Australia and Montenegro.

© Sportsbeat 2012